Source:  Ainfos, 5 March 2002

THE international anarchist movement will be saddened at the belated news of the death of Wilstar Choongo, founder of the Anarchist & Workers’ Solidarity Movement (AWSM) of Zambia.A self-taught anarchist activist, Wilstar first came to the attention of the movement in 1996 through his lone battle to improve the salaries of employees at the University of Zambia (UNZA)where he worked as a librarian — and where he built up a formidable collection of anarchist works for the use of students.

Zambia, a former British colony, gained its independence without much of a struggle in 1964. The 30-year African socialist regime of Kenneth Kaunda proved disastrous. The economy remained essentially extractive, agriculture shrivelled as farmers flooded into the cities because of urban food subsidies. Then the collapse of the copper price in the mid-1970s put paid to any hoped-for recovery.When Kaunda was defeated by the former Zambian Congress of Trade Unions general secretary Frederick Chiluba in the first democratic elections in 1991, the stage was set for the neo-liberal dismantling of an already drastically weakened country.

Although Chiluba had climbed to power on the back of a pro-democratic working class, his Movement for Multi- party Democracy soon revealed its true colours. Every organised group of citizens has to be annually licensed by the police and executions and torture resumed after a seven-year reprieve.

Although Zambia had played host to many African national-liberation exile and guerrilla groups (including the ANC/MK) during the Kaunda era, the inertia of never having fought for its own independence meant there was no tradition of grassroots protest, and only a tiny Left represented by the Socialist Caucus, a Marxist-Leninist discussion group at UNZA.

People in the shantytowns literally eat mud for the mineral content. In a two-week period that I was there, five employed UNZA workers were buried after having died of malnutrition – and this as the well-heeled employees of neo-liberal NGOs managing the structural adjustment of Zambia sported about with satellite dishes and Toyota Landcruisers.

It was against this background that Wilstar alone took on the entire varsity administration in an attempt to get a pay rise for the staff.  Wilstar was taken to court, but he was unbowed, and he won the pay rise, which encouraged the starving workers to fight for more. That fight brought him onto the “organise” anarchist e-mail discussion list and established links with us at the Workers’ Solidarity Federation (WSF) of South Africa.

Wilstar was born at Kalomo, a town in Southern Province, the son of small-scale farmers. He joined UNZA as a librarian. In 1995 and 1996, he contributed critical articles in the opposition The Post newspaper on the new Zambian constition [sic.]  that was then being drawn up, arguing for the decentralisation of power. In 1996/97, he was the mainstay of support for a group of students who had been kicked out of UNZA for daring to call a non-party-sectarian meeting.

I first met Wilstar when he invited me to Zambia in August 1998 as a WSF delegate to give a public talk on the common enemy facing South African and Zambian workers. He was a friendly, shambling man with a ready grin. I well recall sitting on the bed in his cramped apartment eating a meal of eggs, bread and oranges and engaging in fervent discussions on anarchist strategies.

Shortly after my visit, he and most of the youths of the Socialist Caucus’ UNZA-Cuba Friendship Association, who had converted to anarchism, set up the AWSM (sometimes referred to as the Anarchist Workers’ Group – Zambia), the first known anarchist organisation in Central Africa, and one which linked students, staff and workers.

Wilstar decided against the AWSM becoming a WSF section because of the great distances involved, but hoped to maintain regular contact and material and ideological support. In early 1999, WSF proposed that the AWSM become a WSF section, the South African and Zambian sections to be federated horizontally.As things turned out, the WSF dissolved in September 1999 because of the ineffectiveness of its organisational method, and the far more productive Bikisha Media Collective, Zabalaza Books and Anarchist Union sprang up in its stead.

But we last had contact with Wilstar on July 15, 1999. Unknown to us, he died shortly afterwards, aged 35, following a bout with malaria that brought on meningitis. Uncomplaining to the end, he had not even mentioned his illness to his comrades.

He left a wife and three young children. This obitiary [sic.] was delayed due to the critical problems of communication among workers in Africa. The AWSM is believed to have collapsed as a result of his death.

But although death cut short efforts to build a Central African anarchist movement, Wilstar’s direct-actionist example of anarchism in practice is still remembered as a great contribution to the ethics of the emergent Left in the region.

A Socialist Caucus activist described him so: “He wasn’t prepared to make things convenient for himself. His death is an extremely big loss to the whole fragile Left and UNZA is still reeling from it.” As we say in South Africa when a militant dies: “Hamba kahle (go well) Comrade Wilstar!”

– Michael Schmidt (Bikisha Media Collective, South Africa)

The anarchist-led Social Democratic Federation (SDF) of Cape Town held rallies in protest; Harrison wrote the anti-imperialist leaflet below. With fellow SDF members D.L. Dryburg and William Green,  who also spoke at the rallies, he was successfully prosecuted. An appeal later overturned the convictions.

Source: 28 June 1921, Cape Times

MURDER! MURDER!

MURDER!!!

THE BULLHOEK MASSACRE.

Christians Slaughter Their Christian Brethren. Great Empire Day Celebration.

How appropriate and how much in keeping with the Matabele Massacre and other of their brutal empire-building tactics. And the Bullhoek tragedy was either by fate or circumstances enacted on their very Empire Day.

We accuse the responsible Government, whose forces are headed by a brutal assassin, of murdering unarmed strikers in Johannesburg, 1913, slaughtering unarmed Natives in Port Elizabeth, 192o, and their latest debauch is the gruesome mutilation of hundreds of Natives who were Christians and a passive community.

Hence this brutal invasion is truly symbolical of Governmental tyranny their hysterical efforts to exploit the workers, irrespective of their particular colour or religious beliefs, and to maintain their position functioned by an idle and parasitic class. Their armies are ever available to suppress any libertarian effort from the oppressing yoke of Capitalism. A condemnation meeting will he held on the Parade at 11 a.m. Sunday morning; Sunday evening, Adderley Street; St. Mark’s Schoolroom, Tennant Street, Monday evening, 30th.

Source: 25 April 1919 , The International

THE BOLSHEVIKS ARE COMING
To the Workers of South Africa — Black as well as White
A spectre is haunting Europe — the spectre of Bolshevism!What is this Bolshevism that the ruling class is so much afraid of?
Why do they send British Armies to Russia to fight the Bolsheviks?
Have they not had enough killing? Or is it thirst for righteousness that makes them pack Tommy Atkins off to freeze in the snows of Archangel, just when he was looking forward to Home and Blighty?
The Czar massacred half a million nomads in Southern Russia in one swoop. They did not send an army against him.
Why then are they so scared of Bolshevism? Why do they turn pale at its shadow as at the ghost of murdered men? Why?
We will tell you why!
The Great War of Nations is over, and the Class War against Labour has openly begun.
Bolshevism means the rule of the working class! And where the workers rule, the Capitalists cannot carry on their Robber System any more.

A Campaign of Lies
Workers! Do not be misled when the Capitalist Press reviles the Bolsheviks. They slander the Bolsheviks because they have lost the fat money bags they lent to the Czar to crush the Russian people.
They slander the Bolsheviks because they have lost the rich mines and factories which the Russian workmen are now working for themselves; and the land, which forty million peasants are farming in common under the Soviet Republic.
They slander the Bolsheviks because they fear you will follow suit. They are afraid the workers in South Africa will also become free and independent.
They are losing their hair over Bolshevism because they see a prospect of losing their Profits.

Bolshevism Means Labour on Top
The workers of Russia and Germany are forming themselves into Soviets — that is: Councils of Workmen.
They are taking over the control of the country into their own hands —the hands of great wage-earning proletariat. That means the end of the Profiteering System, the end of the Capitalist exploitation of wage-labour for profit.
Why have the workers of Russia and Germany to shed their blood?
Because the Capitalist Class of all countries will sooner tear the people to pieces with their cannon rather than let the people rule. The workers are the people.
Remember the massacre of the workers in Johannesburg in 1913, and inBloemfontein last February!
Down with British Militarism! It is the weapon to crush the workers.
Down with Allied intervention in Russia!!
Down with the Capitalist Class in all countries!!
The hope of the workers is coming from Bolshevism. The free commonwealth of labour is the actual fact in Russia today.
Bolshevism means the victory of the wage-earners. It will soon spread to Britain, France, America and throughout the world.

Get ready for the World-Wide
Republic of Labour.
The way to get ready is to combine in the workshops. Combine as workers, no matter what colour.
Remember that an injury to one is an injury to all, be he black or white.
While the black worker is oppressed, the white worker cannot be free.
Before Labour can emancipate itself, black workers as well as white must combine in one organization of Labour, irrespective of craft, colour or creed.
This is Bolshevism: The Solidarity of Labour

WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE!
You have nothing to lose but your Chains.
You have a world to win!!

Source: Baruch Hirson, 1988, “David Ivon Jones: the early writings on socialism in South Africa”, Searchlight South Africa, vol. 1, no,. 1, p. 107

 INDUSTRIAL WORKERS OF AFRICA    

1 This Native Council is for all those who call themselves Country Workers.  Black African open your eyes, the time has come for you all who call themselves Country Workers that you should join and become members of your own Council. It is not to say that we workers stop you from joining any other Councils, but you must know what you are in the Country for (rich or poor). All workers are poor therefore they should have their own Council.    

2 Item 1: Friend are you not a worker?    

Item 2: Is it not true that we Black People do every work in the country?      

Item 3. If so why do you not become a member of the Industrial Workers of Africa?      

Item 4. Why should all workers be pressed down by the rich where they all do the work of the Country?

Item 5: Why should you be kicked and spat at whilst working.      

Item 6: How is it that you black workers asking for bread from the  Government as their children, are arrested and sent to gaol?      

Item 7: O! Oh! Workers your children died in Gerinan East Africa and West. Others were drowned in the sea. Upon that you are still burdened and compelled to carry 100 (hundred) Passes in your father’s country.      

Item 8: Workers come together and be united and join your own Native Council. Why are you afraid to become members of the Industrial Workers of Africa whilst you call yourself Workers?      

Send your news and your adresses to:-    

T.W. THIBEDI      

P.O. Box 2972, JOHANNESBURG.

Source: Rebel Worker: paper of the Anarcho-Syndicalist Federation, Sydney, Australia
vol. 12, no. 9 (108), Oct 1993, p. 12

SOUTH AFRICA

Dear Comrades,
Greetings from South Africa. Recently we set in motion actions which will hopefully result in the formation of the Anarchist Revolutionary Movement which, to our knowledge, will be South Africa’s first anarchist organisation to operate in the open.Due to our severe lack of experience, we are sending out a plea for any form of aid we can receive. We urgently need advice, literature, and if possible, funds. We hope that you will be able to assist us or to put us in contact with someone who can.

We apologize for the impersonality of this letter, yet we feel that in order to obtain a reasonable response, it is best for us to contact as many groups as possible.

Thanking you in advance, yours in solidarity,
Renato and Elli, POB 51465, Raedene, 2124, Johannesburg, SA

Following are our thoughts on South Africa:

Parhaps the most inluential of the developments has been the unbanning of certain political parties, among whom can be found movements as inramous as the African National Congress (A.N.C.).

Essentially the concept of free speech is relatively new in South Africa. The last 40 years have been dictated to us by the National Party. Everything from their Christian National Education policy to their secret police has been designed to suppress and oppress. It is only recently the cracks have begun to appear in their Armor. In all honesty they have at most another three or four years of power before disappearing like so many of their enemies mysteriously did.

As Anarchists they pose us little threat as we should in fact be looking ahead to the inevitable dictatorship which is to be conslructed by the African National Congress.

Right from the beginning the A.N.C. has made it crystal clear they will sell out both their ideals and supporters to obtain power. When the AN.C. first re-entered the political arena they openly allied themselves with the South African Communist Party. Once threatened with losing the support of big business they quickly embracsd capitalist ideals.

Today, while Mandela sits inside his $250,000 house and reminisces over his daughters recent $10,000 wedding, his “brothers” sleep in tin shacks. While they catch busses or walk 25 miles to work, he rides in one of his two Mercodes Benz’s…but that’s politicians for you. And that is truly who the A.N.C. is there for, money-grabbing megalomaniacs like Mandela.

Oddly enough recent revelations of A.N.C. torture camps have done litte to tarnish their image. ln all honesty they are the lesser of two evils but surely we deserve better.

So now the question arises, who else is there to represent the South African people in this farce some would call a democracy?

Surely not the ineffective stagnant liberal Democratic Party who represeent the free market ideals of the rich. If shove comes to shooting let’s hope we don’t have to turn to the extreme right Afrikaaner Weerstand Beweeging or their black counterparts the Azanian Peoples’ Liberation Army.

If ever there has been a need for an anarchist solution it is here in South Africa. However, massive problems face our movement. How do we break through to people of color who tend to distrust us? The National Party has ensured that this will be no easy task. Unfortunately, in the current political climate it is not possible for us to take our message onto the streets without facing prison terms on charges as ridiculous as treason. And then of course there are the problems of fundlng and our lack of knowledge. Even with all this against us we are hopeful that we will overcome in the long-run. If not, South Africa is destined to remain a puppet of the first world as conditions steadily deteriorate.

 PDF link (scan): 1993 SA anarchist appeal, analysis

Source: Thomas Karis and Gwendolyn M. Carter, editors, 1972, From Protest to Challenge: a documentary history of African politics in South Africa, 1882-1964, vol.one, pp. 325-326

 Whereas the interest of the workers and those of the employers are opposed to each other, the former living by selling their labour, receiving for its labour only part of the wealth they produce; and the latter living by exploiting the labour of the workers; depriving the workers of a part of the product of their labour in the form of profit, no peace can be between the two classes, a struggle must always obtain about the division of the products of human labour, until the workers through their industrial organisations take from the capitalist class the means of production, to be owned and controlled by the workers for the benefit of all, instead of for the profit of a few.

Under such a system, he who does not work, neither shall he eat. The basis of remuneration shall be the principle, from each man according to his abilities, to each man according to his needs. This is the goal for which the ICU strives along with all other organised workers throughout the world. Further this organisation does not foster or encourage antagonism towards other established bodies, political or otherwise, of African peoples, or of organised European labour.

Source: The Workers’ Dreadnought, 18 February 1922

 … The Council of Action, as an industrial body, [is not an] inspiration or a brain wave of the moment, but is an attempt to formulate a scheme of things likened to the Workers’ Committee movement in Britain, which, in an unofficial way, is doing a great and useful work. The method is to work within and without the official Trade Union movement, with the object of abolishing Capitalism and establishing control of industry by the worker for the worker.

The Council of Action, as an indutrial [sic] body, claims that the purpose of production, distribution and exchange, under Capitalism, is to serve class interests. Under this system of society, the working class is dependent upon the capitalist class, because the latter owns and controls the means of production, distribution and exchange, and thus the two classes have nothing in common. From this opposition of class interests there arises an antagonism which manifests itself in the class struggle; one class organising and fighting to hold the power of ownership and control, whilst the working class is compelled to organise to capture the means of production, distribution and exchange to be worked in the interests of society as a whole.

To achieve such power over the resources of life, the working class must organise along class lines to bring about the overthrow of Capitalism, and its class function is the act of Industrial Control. Only by bringing about working class control can the workers eliminate Capitalism and free themselves from wage-slavery. Therefore we stand for class-consciousness, education, organisation, and the direct industrial power of Labour.

 The class struggle, as outlined in our general principles, opens up a two-fold form of industrial organisation. First, Industrial Unionism; secondly, Craft Unions. Industrial Unionism stands for the departmental and co-ordinated organisation of the workers, with the avowed object of wresting the economic power out of the hands of the capitalist class. Such an industrial policy arises out of the industrial conditions created by economic development. Therefore, it imposes the duty of Industrial Class Unionism upon the working class. By organising in revolutionary industrial units within each industry, and throughout all the industries, the class-conscious working class are preparing that form of power which will be required to carry out the proper organisation of production during the transition period.  To further the objects of class-conscious Industrial Unionism, the class-conscious workers should play an active part in all forms of activity within the existing Unions, in order to sway the mass of workers over to the support of direct industrial organisation, which would be used to institute aRepublicofIndustrialWorkers… 

 In order to function as herein stated, our purpose therefore is: (1) to bring all workers in the mining industry into the one organisation; (2) to bring about rank and file control of the organisation. The whole history of Trade Unionism has always been a history of sectionalism and exclusiveness … It is object-lessons of this kind, and others already enumerated, which demand a better form of organisation, not only for usefulness in the wages struggle, but for the greater ideal of full workers’ control….

The cardinal points in the education of the class-conscious workers are three in number: Firstly, the class struggle; secondly, the science of revolution; thirdly, the industrial and political needs of the Industrial Republic. To provide such knowledge, the principles of Marxism must be taught. Hence, the education work of the Council of Action shall be to advance the foregoing principles.

Source: The Bolshevik, February 1920

 The interests of the Working Class and of the Employing Class are diametrically opposed. There can be no peace as long as hunger and want are found among millions of working people, and the few, who make up the employing class, have all the good things of life.

Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the all the toilers come together on the industrial field, and take and hold what they produce by their labour, through an economic organisation of the working class, without affiliation to any political party. The rapid gathering of wealth in and the centring of the management of industries into fewer and fewer hands make the Trades Unions unable to cope with the ever-growing power of the employing class, because the Trades Unions foster a state of things which allows one set of workers to be pitted against another set of workers in the same industry, thereby helping defeat one another in wage wars. The Trades Unions aid the employing class to mislead the workers into the belief that the working class have interests in common with their employers.

These sad conditions can be only be changed, and the interests of the working class upheld by an organisation formed in such a way that all its members in any one industry – or in all industries if necessary – cease work whenever a strike or lockout is on in any department thereof, thus making an injury to one an injury to all.

 OUR OBJECTS

The abolition of the wage system and the establishment of a Socialist Commonwealth based on the principle of self-governing industries, in which the workers will work and control the instruments of production, distribution and exchange for the benefit of the entire community.

 OUR METHODS AND PRINCIPLES

1. – By propagating by every means in our power, the principles of Industrial Unionism.

2.- By advising and assisting the working class in the establishment of such forms of industrial organisation as will enable them not only to improve their present condition but eventually take over complete control of all industries.

3. – The League is strictly anti-political and anti-militarist.

Source: translation by Wilfred Jali attached to report on meeting of 1 November 1917, Department of Justice, “The ISL and Coloured Workers”, JD 3/527/17, National Archives, Pretoria

 Workers of the Bantu race:

Why do you live in slavery? Why are you not free as other men are free? Why are you kicked and spat upon by your masters? Why must you carry a pass before you can move anywhere? And if you are found without one, why are you thrown into prison? Why do you toil hard for little money? And again thrown into prison if you refuse to work? Why do they herd you like cattle into compounds?  WHY?

Because you are the toilers of the earth. Because the masters want you to labour for their profit. Because they pay the Government and Police to keep you as slaves to toil for them.

If it were not for the money they make from your labour, you would not be oppressed.

But mark: you are the mainstay of the country. You do all the work, you are the means of their living. That is why you are robbed of the fruits of your labour and robbed of your liberty as well.

There is only one way of deliverance for you Bantu workers. Unite as workers. Unite: forget the things which divide you. Let there be no longer any talk of Basuto, Zulu, or Shangaan. You are all labourers; let Labour be your common bond.

Wake up! And open your ears. The sun has arisen, the day is breaking, for a long time you were asleep while the mill of the rich man was grinding and breaking the sweat of your work for nothing. You are strongly requested to come to the meeting of the workers to fight for your rights.

Come and listen, to the sweet news, and deliver yourself from the bonds and chains of the capitalist. Unity is strength. The fight is great against the many passes that persecute you and against the low wages and misery of you existence.

Workers of all lands unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains. You have a world to win.

Source:  The International, 7 December 1917

The Management Committee of the ISL has issued the following statement to the Branches as a basis of discussion at the Annual Conference. The MC recommends this statement of our attitude towards the native worker to be embodied in the League platform for 1918 propaganda. Comrades are invited to read it with a view to discussion, and amendment if they so desire, at the Conference of the League, which will be held in January 6th next.

The abolition of the Native Indenture, Passport and Compound Systems and the lifting of the Native Workers to the Political and Industrial Status of the White is an essential step towards the Emancipation of the Working-class in South Africa.

Society is divided into two classes: the working class, doing all the labour; and the idle class, living on the fruits of labour. Strictly speaking therefore there is no ‘Native Problem’. There is only a working class problem. But within the working class arises the problem of the native worker. In all countries the influx of cheap labour is used as a whip wherewith to beat the whole of the working class.

In South Africa the cheap labourer, being black, is doubly resented by the higher paid worker. And the employers foment this colour-prejudice through their newspapers, and are thus able to wield the whip of cheap labour with double effect. The suicidal prejudice of the white workers against the coloured workers is the only native problem. This prejudice manufactures the scabs that beat both black and white in the day when the solidarity of all the workers is essential to victory.

We speak therefore to the workers, and above all to those workers who look forward to the emancipation of labour from wage slavery. There can be no appeal to any section of society outside the working-class, as their interests are opposed to labour, and their opinions therefore of no account to us.

One section of the workers cannot benefit itself at the expense of the rest without betraying the hope of the children. Those who receive favours from the master class may lift themselves out of the propertyless proletariat: but their children will inherit the fear of the abyss which their fathers helped to create.

The power of labour lies in its ability to stop, or to control industry. All the workers are needed for this. Labour, not Colour, is the watchword of solidarity. If all those who labour cannot share in the emancipation of Labour, none can be emancipated. ‘Labour cannot emancipate itself in the White while in the Black it is branded.’ (Marx)

So long as we refuse to admit the native worker into the ranks of Labour solidarity, so long will cheap labour pull down the white worker to the native standard of existence. But so soon as we welcome the native worker into equality on the industrial field, then is he forthwith lifted up towards the white standard of living.

White standards are not in danger from the ambition of the native to improve. White standards are endangered by the attempts to keep him down. White standards will not be saved in South Africa by the White Labour Policy. White standards will only be saved by the Black workers organising industrially. The highest social culture is safest in the keeping of the lowest paid labourers.

What makes native labour so cheap and exploitable in South Africa? Laws and regulations which, on the pretence of protecting society from barbarism, degrade the native workers to the level of serfs and herded cattle for the express uses of Capital. These are:

 The Passport system.

The Compound System.

The Native Indenture system.

The special penal laws which make it a crime for a native to absent himself from work.

The denial of civil liberty and political rights.

 All those things which place the native workers on a lower social plane than the white workers are weapons in the hands of the employing class to be used against all the workers, white and black.

These tyrant laws must be swept away. For these degrading conditions of native labour are the abyss into which masses of the white workers are continually being hurled by Capitalist competition.

Sweep them away! What pious horror is aroused by this demand! Unspeakable calamities will follow, we are told. But are they not the very cause of the social calamities they are supposed to guard against? Indeed, they are themselves the greatest of social calamities.

The cause of Labour demands the abolition of the Pass, the Compound, and the Indenture: and as the native workers gain in industrial solidarity, demands for their complete political equality with their white fellow workers.

Only thus can the whole of the working class, white and black, march unitedly forward to their common emancipation from wage slavery.