Turn anti apartheid fight towards blacking

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It is welcome news that, national campaign to isolate the white racists of South Africa is gaining ground.

On April 21 the British Anti-Apartheid Movement held mobilising conference, attended by about 300 delegates, to plan a one-year long campaign Britain for the implementation of economic sanctions against capitalist-apartheid South Africa.

This could become a very important campaign in support of international solidarity with the oppressed majority in South Africa. In Socialist Press too we have continuously advocated the implementation of measures •economic blacking by the labour movement against South Africa's economic interests.

But there will be a number of problems to be overcome if this campaign is to contribute to the weakening of the Botha regime and the South African state.

Some of these problems are in no way the responsibility of those who lead the Anti-Apartheid Movement and operate within it.

It was noticeable for instance that at the mobilising conference there was a relative absence of delegates from union branches representing manual workers in those industries which have close economic relations with South Africa.

The great majority of the union delegates were from the white collar unions such as NALGO, the civil service unions and the bank and postal workers unions.

Key Industries A successful campaign will have to gain mass support among factory workers in key industries.

And, at the pressing of some of the delegates, the conference agreed a plan to send speakers from AAM and from the trade union congress of South Africa.

SACTU, to speak at factory gate and union branch meetings in the industries most concerned in order to arouse more support for sanctions.

There was also a noticeable absence of the groups of the revolutionary left who are represented very badly these days at most mobilisations on Southern Africa. To our knowledge the only groups represented on April 21 were Mintanl.

several of whose supporters were delegates, the RCG and the WSL.

Given the significant influence which it is possible for the Anti-Apartheid Movement to have, and the urgency of the tasks which it sets out to perform, the absence of revolutionary socialists from this arena at the present time is a very serious error.

Internationalism

It means that a campaign which could be of great benefit to the oppressed people of South Africa may go in the wrong direction because of the relatively unchallenged intluence within the anti-apartheid struggle of such forces as leading retormists from the Labour Party and the Communist Party That danger was very apparent in many parts of the debate a the moblising donicind MIOUE A TUCE nuMh Anti-Apartheid demonstra tion ference. A number of the de! legates-and most consistent tly those who were members of t he Communist Party-put forwa ird a conception of the fight f For economic pressure against ap: theid which was deeply wro ing and which, if not successfu lly challenged, will make the ca paign at best impotent, at wo rst a step away from proletari ian internationalism.

In the first place the sai tions were seen as one whi ich would be primarily carried Jut by the governments of sta ,tes rather than primarily by the direct blacking action of the labour movement.

Sanctions

And that will mean sanctions which it is much easier for capitalists and the South African government to evade. even though states might have to play some role in a successtul sanctions campaign.

sanctions can they possibly become effective.

This point is linked closely to the central role which many delegates saw the United Nations taking in the operation of sanctions. Such intervention would remove sanctions one stage further. from democrațic control by the working class.

The fecord. of the 'l'nited . i.. tar South 5: 200 •.. Africa is of course appallingbecause it is basically an organisation dominated by imperialism and Stalinism and which on major issues does only what those two reactionary forces agree that it should do.

Although the African countries intend in the forthcoming meeting of the UN General Assembly to take mandatory sanctions against South Africa under the special clause in the constitution which forbids the Security Council to block a resolution. this will not make any significant difference.

" The fact is that already there has for some years been a mandatory UN ban on supplying arms to South Africa.

But this as a recent film made by Granada TV shows clearly and terrifyingly has not stopped South Africa being in the position to manufacture a nuclear shell plant, which give it one of the most advanced and dangerous military technologies in the world.

Bulwark

In reality the bourgeois states which dominate the (N are highly unlikely to implement sanctions against capitalist South Africa: as the recent pronouncements of the Reagan have shown. che imperialist nations sor theif roke _as supporting South drain TEC TINO NUE IRK ATO racism with the struggle for socialism or indeed with any other progressive demands.

This refusal to centre the campaign on independent working class action leads to what is in some ways the worst and most negative aspect of this whole position-its nationalism.

Delegates, especially from from the Communist Party, argued, as they often have done before, that if there was resistance to sanctions from workers on the grounds that they would cause hardship, the AAM should argue that sanctions would materially benefit British workers.

In the first place they say, if Britain does not impose trade sanctions against South Africa then other African countries will impose sanctions against Britain and this will be even more harmful to British jobs.

Disinvestment

They also say that if British firms are prevented from investing in South Africa then they will bring their capital back home and invest it in Britain thus providing jobs for British workers.

They talk as it the capital belonged to Britain rather than plan an :. anti-capitalist •propramme, • part of which would be in support ot action , A workers in South Atrica to capital in their country.

Such a possibility was not mentioned by any delegate to the mobilising conference.

A campaign for international solidarity which sets out armed with arguments of nationalism and narrow self-interest will not achieve a strengthening of proletarian internationalism, it will lead. in the direction of reaction and disillusion.

Of course, the CP argues that there is still not widespread support for sanctions and therefore it is necessary to recognise that fact. Their self-interested arguments not only make concessions to nationalist sentiments in the working class but they bolster and add to those sentiments.

Material Hardship Of course, as some delegates recognised on March 21 there is a problem involved in arguing for policies - which will bring some material hardship on those who implement them. The answer is not to cheat and deny that those hardships will occur but to present other policies to deal with them.

This means that the campaign for effective sanctions against apartheid must be linked with the struggle for workers control throughout industry, the fight for jobs and wages and conditions.

A successful campaign of sanctions must be backed by the correct demands on those questions; it will not make those sit wilesaken the capitalist close as a whole at one of the pivots of its worldwide strength-in South Africa.

For this reason it will also be essential to centre the campaign for action against apartheid on building concrete supporting action in relation to the numerous struggles in which South African workers will certainly be involved during the proposed AAM year of action.

The fight. of South African workers for decent wages and better conditions and for the most elementary democratic rights is every day creating new needs for international solidarity actions in support of specific struggles.

Opportunities

Too many delegates at the AAM conference were unwilling to admit that and to act upon it.

It is important for revolutionaries in the workers' movement to seize decisively the opportunity created by the AAM's plans for a sanctions campaign and to make sure ihat no opportunity is lost to make that campaign a practical demonstration of proletarian international solidarity which strikes a major blow at apartheid.

The dates so far proposed in the campaign are:

April 25: National Day of Consumer Boycott of South African products and signing of sanctions petition.

June Month of Action on Shell and BP.

October 15 Day of Action on Barclays.

October 24-3 1 Trade Union Week of Action.

The detailed content of this campaign and whether it will be a step forward or backwards will be settled by the. actions of socialists. in the unions and the AAM over the next few months.

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