'ARRESTING PUTIN WOULD BE RISKING WAR WITH SA AND RUSSIA, SAYS NTSHAVHENI'

 'Minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni said South Africa had no intention of arresting Russian President Vladimir Putin after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant against him' Eyewitness News, 8 June).

Were any of SA's first three presidents put on trial for supporting another dictator, Mugabe of neighboring Zimbabwe?    Mbeki during his tenure promoted alternative remedies such as vinegar rather than antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) which saved the state’s funds at a cost of up to 365,000 lives. Some members of the 99 percent called for him to be tried for crimes against humanity.   Was he?   Sharpeville II took place on 16 August 2012. With 17 workers killed and 78 wounded by the police, the Marikana Miners’ Massacre was the most lethal use of force by South African security forces against other workers since 1976. Commissioner Phiyega said that the police had acted well within their legislative mandate. Ramaphosa and King Zuma share responsibility for this mass murder.   Were there ever plans to put them on trial?   In June 2015, while in South Africa for an African Union meeting,  the former dictator of Sudan (and one of 15 on the ICC's most wanted list), al-Bashir,  was prohibited from leaving while a court decided whether he should be handed over to the ICC for war crimes.  Was he? 

The answer to all the above is NO!   It is futile to punish such odious  individuals whilst ignoring the vicious conditions which made them possible. War criminals are not responsible for war, which is caused by the struggles between competing capitalist states  over markets and economic resources. War will only end with the abolition of capitalism. The dictators of yesterday, and the dictators and leaders of today, with their frightening military machines, only reflect the preparedness of their workers to ignore the bloodshed of all the conflicts before, during and after the war to end all wars and still to die for capitalism.

The Passing Show: African Edition

Don't do as I do

Sir Roy Welensky has made the point several times recently that African politicians in the Rhodesian Federation must not presume to aspire to the Premiership. For example, in a statement reported in The Times (18/1/60) Sir Roy said: “Ambitious African leaders wanted a break-up of the Federation because it would mean fulfilment of their personal ambitions to be Prime Ministers and Ministers of black States."

Socialists have their own opinions about "ambitious African leaders," or about ambitious leaders of any nationality. But if anyone can lecture others about their "personal ambitions to be Prime Ministers," surely Sir Roy Welensky can't. He used to be Premier of Southern Rhodesia, and is now Prime Minister of the Rhodesian Federation. Another case, it seems, of "Don't do as I do, do as I say.”

Capital is safe

Any capitalist who is still dubious about the new independent capitalist states now being set up throughout Africa can take heart from a letter written by Sir Robert Kirkwood which appeared in The Times of 27/1/60. Sir Robert, writing from Jamaica, points out that: “When I first came here, 20 years ago, the average white Jamaican openly and vociferously argued, and genuinely believed, that the “black man" was quite incapable of running the country. And even conservative coloured and black Jamaicans averred that universal adult suffrage could never work here."

But the British ruling class decided to set up the West Indies as an independent federation. The result has been a great development of capitalism. As the letter says: "More economic progress has been achieved in the short time since Jamaicans elected under universal adult suffrage took over the Government than in the previous century."

Even capital owned by Europeans is quite safe: “Nor have I ever detected that our politicians' felt the slightest inclination to penalize capital of any description going about its legitimate business."
The “legitimate business" of capital being, of course, to wring surplus value out of the workers. Sir Robert warns of the dangers of thwarting the "rightful ambitions" of the native ruling class:

    "I am certain that most of our present West Indian leaders, who have earned general commendation from Europeans resident in these parts, as well as in their missions abroad, would have been capable. only a few years ago. of leading revolutions, bloody revolutions, if their rightful ambitions to govern in their own homes had been indefinitely and unreasonably deferred."

The letter goes on to assure fainthearts that the African nationalists, too, only wish to develop capitalism in their own countries:

    "Although I nave not visited Africa myself. experienced and reliable Jamaican friends of mine who know the leaders in Kenya, Nyasaland, the Rhodesias, etc., tell me that most of these men. though dedicated and even fanatical nationalists, are, for the most part, far from holding radical views in economic matters. My friends consider that once elected to power these men would seek advice and assistance, and govern with a sense of responsibility and attention to what is best for the, economic, development of their respective homelands."

It is obvious that Sir Robert Kirkwood, at least, does not see any danger to capitalism when formerly colonial countries become independent.

Diamonds thicker than dogma

The diamond producers of the Western world let the Central Selling Organisation of the De Beers group of companies handle virtually all their diamonds: thus this South African concern is able to maintain high prices and high profits for the shareholders of the diamond companies. The Observer (24/1/60) called it “one of the most efficient organisations for resale price maintenance that capitalism has yet produced." But recently the Russians discovered large new deposits of diamonds in north-cast Siberia and in the northern Urals. It was feared that once the exploitation of these new mines got under way, the Russians would export their surpluses, and undercut De Beers organisation. This would mean a slump in prices and in profits. But now all is well. The Russians have agreed to let the Central Selling Organisation market all the diamonds they export to the Western world.

As The Guardian says (19/1/60): "The agreement to channel these sales entirely through the De Beers organisation shows that the Soviet authorities have no intention of underselling South Africa, but intend to fall in with the price maintenance arrangements of the African producers in order to get the best possible returns.” So the Russian and the South African capitalists join hands to safeguard their surplus value.

Publicity

The recent banning by South Africa of a number of the SPGB's pamphlets has led to a certain amount of publicity for the party there. An article appeared in the Johannesburg Star on November 3rd. 1959. There are the sneers which one might expect when a capitalist paper deals with a Socialist Party, but at least the article contained the following:

    "The SPGB believes in no war. no leaders, no bosses, no capitalism, and no Soviet Communism. It believes in the common ownership of the means of producing and distributing the world's goods, and does not believe that Russia or China any more than the United States or Britain have achieved this."

Free publicity for the Socialist Party can hardly have been one of the results the South African Nationalists aimed at when they clamped their censorship down on our pamphlets.

Intermingling

You may not be interested in boxing, but it could hardly have escaped your attention last summer that a certain Ingemar Johansson had taken the world's heavyweight title from the previous holder, Floyd Patterson. The South African government believes, however, that such knowledge as this would be seditious for all except the white population of South Africa. As it was reported in the Johannesburg Star (14/7/59):

    "Non-whites arc not allowed to see any film containing "scenes of intermingling of Europeans and non-Europeans.'' That is why non-whites have been banned from seeing the film now circulating of the recent Johansson-Patterson world heavy-weight title fight. Johansson is white, but Patterson is a negro. So the film cannot he screened at all in non-white cinemas. And in those where non-whites may sit in the gallery and whites in the stalls, the non-whites have to wait outside until this newsreel ends before taking their seats."

If the South African government really thinks that this will keep the coloured population ignorant of the fact that a black man and a white man fought for the title, they must be well out of touch with reality.
Alwyn Edgar
(This article first appeared in the March 1960 Socialist Standard, and has just recently been added to our online archive).

Empire and Poverty

Pages from South African History

A corner stone in the British Empire is the Dominion of South Africa, the Prime Minister of which. General Smuts was made a Field-Marshal of the British Army on his 71st birthday two years ago. The approval accorded to him in the British Press contrasts rather forcibly with the rather nasty epithets bestowed upon the politicians of other countries who have accepted office under their conquerors, during the past year or so.

While still in his twenties Smuts became State Attorney of the Transvaal Republic under Kruger, whose administration (according to most British accounts) was one of the most corrupt on earth. After the war of 1899—1902 the Boer politicians were out of the limelight, their territory being annexed and administered by a High Commissioner of the Crown. The grant of responsible government a few years later, however, gave them their chance once more. General Louis Botha (who had succeeded Joubert as commander during the war) formed Het Volk and secured a majority in the first elections 1907. From that time onwards Smuts was in close association with Botha, until the latter's death in 1919, occupying ministerial positions under him and eventually succeeding him as Premier of the Union. He held this office till 1924, when he gave way to General Hertzog and the National Party, triumphant at the polls with the aid of the Labourites. Some eight or nine years later, however, when the economic blizzard had affected the popularity of Hertzog's ministry, we find Smuts again in office as Minister of Justice in a Coalition with his late rival. Since then Smuts has reaped the reward of his pertinacity and occupied the supremacy so dear to him.

Smuts cannot be accused of neglecting his opportunities, a fact which can be appreciated best against the background of history.

His countrymen fought the war of 1899-1902 in the desperate attempt to preserve their political independence. This had been in a precarious state ever since the British occupied the Cape; and some three-quarters of a century earlier the Boers in large numbers had trekked northwards to avoid British control. Their primitive mode of life was gradually complicated by the discovery of minerals and the arrival in the country of prospectors and their hangers-on, and this led to a clamour for annexation. One attempt in 1877 lasted over three years. The Boers tolerated the position while the British were engaged in their struggles with the natives (chiefly the Zulus) and then revolted successfully, resuming' the status of a Republic in 1881. A few years later the discovery of gold on the Rand laid the foundations of the economic “fifth column," which led to its final downfall.

A description of some of the gentry the Boers were expected to tolerate is contained in a small volume, "South Africa" by J. I. A. Agar-Hamilton, lecturer in modern history at Pretoria University. ("South Africa" Modern States Series: Arrowsmith.)

  Pioneers are always pleasanter in retrospect than in close proximity in the flesh, and many of the earliest inhabitants of Barberton and Johannesburg were drunken rowdies and ne'er-do-wells, who were a pest to any law-abiding citizen. In the second wave came international crooks, swindlers and bullies, criminals of every sort who needed a respite from the attentions of the European police. (P. 36.)

More formidable were the large financiers such as Rhodes, who became Prime Minister of Cape Colony in 1890 with the support of Hofmeyr, the leader of the Cape Dutch. The Rand magnates backed the demand for the enfranchisement of the alien element in the Transvaal. .The answer of the Kruger Government was to raise the residential qualification to fourteen years (1890), and any prospect of a more moderate attitude was killed by Dr. Jameson (Rhodes' friend and Administrator of Rhodesia), who "invaded" the Transvaal in 1895 in the vain hope of bringing to a head a much talked of rising on the Rand. The Boers rounded him up with his 500 men and handed the captives over to the British High Commissioner. This magnanimity, however, did not indicate any weakening of their purpose. In October, 1899, the Transvaal and Orange Free State, making common cause, demanded the withdrawal of British troops and the war was on. The Boers could not maintain their initial success. In June, 1900, their capital, Pretoria, was in British hands and Kruger was in flight. None the less, the conflict dragged on, guerrilla fashion, for another two years. To bring it to a conclusion. Kitchener had to evacuate the rural population; concentrate them in camps, and supply them with rations.

The farmhouses were then systematically destroyed and blockhouses and barbed wire sought to restrict the movement of the commandos. ("South Africa," p. 44.)

So great a havoc was wrought that no indemnity from the vanquished was possible. On the contrary, the victors had to advance considerable sums to restore agricultural production.

Although the Boers could hardly be suspected of aiming at world domination, the workers in Britain were fed the customary pap about their "enemies" being skulking cowards who hid behind rocks to snipe the manly British Tommy, who, as often as not, had to beg his bread in British streets when the war was over. The bioscope shows of the day depicted the ruthless Dutch farmers attacking the hospitals (plainly marked with red crosses) and molesting the helpless and attractive nurses. A large percentage of the wounds were supposed to be due to "dum-dum" bullets. Then of course the Boers were brutal to the niggers; but this did not prevent them being allowed to retain their rifles, when peace was signed, "for their protection" against these same niggers, and they were "secured against a native franchise." (South Africa, p. 44.)

From the Orange to the Limpopo the countryside lay waste, without house or inhabitant, and its simplest agricultural needs were imported from elsewhere— Swiss milk, Australian butter and Irish eggs. The whole rural population had to be repatriated, the economic machinery of the country must be set going once more, and a new civil service and administration recreated. (p. 48.)

Under these circumstances it is hardly surprising that Botha and Smuts felt their dependence on their conquerors, and that their policy of conciliation received the support of the majority of their countrymen for a period of several years. In the Orange River Colony which had no large English-speaking population like the mining towns in the Transvaal, this policy was by no means so popular. Nevertheless the Union of the two ex-republics with the British colonies of the Cape and Natal was eventually effected in 1910.

Botha became the first premier. He expanded Het Volk into the South African National Party aiming to include British as well as Boer supporters. The mining interests of the Transvaal, however, combined with British elements in the Cape to form the Unionist Party, which retained its independent existence for ten years. The Labour Party, though strong in the Transvaal towns, was naturally weak in an agricultural country run on unenfranchised native labour, and "direct action" has, on more than one occasion, led to considerable violence on the Rand.

It was not long before the Government found itself in conflict with this element of the working-class. In July, 1913, a miners' strike brought out the whole Imperial garrison to restore order. Six months later an attempt at a general strike, including the State railwaymen, "was countered by the Proclamation of Martial Law. . . . Nine trade union leaders were summarily deported without trial" (South Africa, p. 58.)

A few months earlier, Hertzog (one of Botha's ministers who was dropped on account of his open hostility to the British elements) formed a new National Party. When the European War broke out in 1914, he advocated neutrality. The Botha Government, however, proceeded to send an expedition to invade German South-West Africa. A 'rebellion led, among others, by De Wet, gave them some trouble, but the leaders of the Nationalist Party had little confidence in its success and Botha kept control of the situation; his party lost ground, however, as the followers of Hertzog increased in number. Smuts held a place in the Imperial War Cabinet in 1917 along with Lord Milner, the High Commissioner of Boer War days.

Botha died "execrated among his own people" but "the hero of the Imperialists" (South Africa, pp. 62-3) and " Smuts inherited a peck of troubles. The elections (1920) returned the Nationalists as the biggest single party, while the Unionists lost heavily to the advantage of Labour in the towns" (p. 65). Smuts had only one course in order to retain office. He secured support from the Unionists who sank their identity in his party and allowed three of their members to join the Cabinet. Botha's dream of conciliation was realised—a Dominion of the British Empire in South Africa had been established.

March, 1922, saw a revival of the Rand trouble. Strikers drilled openly on the Reef, the defence commandos were called out and aeroplanes and field artillery were finally required to quell the rising.

At the next election in 1924 the Labour Party formed a pact with the party of Hertzog to avoid splitting the anti-Government vote. As a piece of tactics it was an immediate success. The Nationalist-cum-Labour coalition had a substantial majority and two Labour leaders entered the Ministry.

In order to secure the support of the Labour Party the Nationalists dropped the Republican clause from their constitution. Nevertheless General Hertzog spent some years trying to clarify the status of the Union. He wanted the right to secede recognised and it took two Imperial Conferences to satisfy him. In economic matters his government pursued a policy of Protection coupled with Factories Acts, Wages Boards and Industrial Conciliation.

In native affairs Hertzog stood for white supremacy and repressive legislation (such as the Colour Bar Bill, 1926, which limited natives in mines to unskilled labour, the Riotous Assemblies Act, 1930, and the Native Service Contract Act, 1932) found its way on to the Statute Book. As Mr. Agar Hamilton points out, he "could always rely on the support of ultra-British Natal for the more repressive side of his policy" (South Africa, p. 122). And, we may add, that of the more short-sighted white members of the working-class who fail to realise the necessity for organising irrespective of race or colour.

In 1929 the Labour Party split over the Question of continuing their pact with Hertzog. In the elections of that year the Coalition lost ground but the Government retained its majority. The following year the world depression made itself felt throughout the Union where the number of mortgaged farms is abnormally high. "Long established landowners were ruined and those small farmers and "bywoners" who normally lived dose to the poverty line suffered appalling privations" (South Africa, p. 80),

The diamond mines were closed as the price of their product collapsed and thousands of diggers in the Western Transvaal found themselves destitute. Relief works became the order of the day.

After a vain struggle to remain on the gold standard the Government finally abandoned it in December, 1932. During the following year negotiations were opened between the Nationalists and the South African Parties. The two Labour Ministers were dropped while Smuts and five of his supporters joined the Government. "Parliament was dissolved, but an adroit system of parcelling out the seats ensured the return of the two big parties very nearly as before " (South Africa, P. 84).

Thus the intrigues and trickery with which we are familiar in the case of the Mother of Parliaments, are very closely reflected in her youngest daughter. Those workers who believe that the British Empire is democratic in principle might reflect on these facts; and, further, ask themselves what is the lot of the workers in the latest addition to the Commonwealth of Nations. According to Mr. Agar Hamilton, "two major problems commonly exercise the minds of the people of South Africa, the Poor White and the Native" (p. 105).

The Carnegie Commission reckoned that in 1929-30, before the effects of the depression were felt, 17.5 per cent, of the white population were "very poor." After 1930 the position became more serious, i.e., 20 per cent. Poverty among white workers in Africa has its peculiar features due to local conditions yet Professor Macmillan says: "The poor whites are little more than the 'reservoir' of unemployed to be found wherever Western industrialism has dislocated the old agrarian system." (Complex South Africa, p. 16.)

The native population of five and a half million may be divided broadly into three groups. First some two and a half million have their homes in "Reserves," i.e., "the last vestiges of the land once occupied by independent tribes" (South Africa, p. 111). They are little more than a breeding ground; for the majority of the able-bodied males are away working in the mines or on farms for the greater part of the year. The Reserves are not capable of feeding their inhabitants and the shortage of production has to be made good by imports paid for largely by remittance from the absent wage-earners.

The second group of two million (the so-called "squatters") reside on the farms of the white invaders who annexed and divided up the land. They pay for the accommodation either in labour or produce according to the requirements of the owners. The remaining group work in the towns.

All alike suffer poverty. In the words of Professor Macmillan: "There is little room left for doubt that the natives of the Union as a whole are a community dragging along at the very lowest level of bare subsistence." (Complete South Africa, p. 221.)

From all of which it would appear that the Commonwealth of Nations is not incompatible with the poverty of its people.

Eric Boden

(Socialist Standard, July 1943)

Production for profit and its aftermath

  All wealth comes from labour applied to nature given raw materials. In order to access those , labour has to be expended and in order to utilise the materials, labour again adds value to the products. The workers commodity 'labour power'  produces a surplus which accrues to the capitalist class once the goods are sold on the market and  is the source of all profit.

 Once the well is milked and an economic downturn occurs, workers are abandoned until or if such times arrived where they can be exploited further and the capitalist class make off with the loot.

 This is true the whole world over as coal miners in Wales can testify and now workers in South Africa.


 The Blyvooruitzicht Gold Mine used to be one of the world’s largest and most profitable mining concerns, purportedly yielding some one million kilograms of precious metals over its 70 years of operation

  The human toll of the abrupt closure of the Blyvooruitzicht Gold Mine in 2013 is devastating, according to a new FIDH and LHR report. The two human rights organisations documented a widespread and precipitous decline in both environmental and socio-economic standards, since the Mine's collapse. FIDH and LHR condemn, in their report, the role of corporate and state actors who did not comply with their obligations, abandoning the community of 6000 residents.

“The catastrophe at Blyvooruitzicht is the result of a toxic cocktail involving private sector abdication of responsibility, inadequate implementation of the existing legislative framework and lack of anticipation of the severity of the impacts of a sudden liquidation of a major mining operation,” affirmed Michael Clements, lawyer and head of the Environmental Rights Program at LHR.

  The Blyvooruitzicht Gold Mine used to be one of the world’s largest and most profitable mining concerns, purportedly yielding some one million kilograms of precious metals over its 70 years of operation. The report reveals that today 75% of the community is unemployed. Close to 60% of them reported not having enough money to buy food, and a similar percentage reported being unable to support their children. All community members face problems of regular access to water and electricity.

“We have been dumped by the government and the gold mine,” said a member of the community interviewed during the research process.

  The report calls upon current and former owners and operators of the mine to mitigate and provide redress for the violations faced by residents of the village. It encourages government authorities to sanction the corporate failures to implement social and environmental rehabilitation measures. The report also reviews the current legal and institutional framework of mining and insolvency law, in order to avoid this situation from being repeated elsewhere.

  The exploitation of gold has shaped South Africa’s natural landscape, its socio-political history, and its economic trajectory. As the gold mining industry enters its twilight years, this report alerts us all to the human toll from unforeseen closure and down-scaling of mines. If the experience of these individuals is a template for the scores of other mining communities which exist in South Africa, the next decade will produce similar crises on a much wider scale.

“Companies cannot show up, extract resources from the land, benefit from the labour of the people, and then just leave. They have responsibilities and legal obligations,” stated Alice Mogwe, FIDH Secretary General.

  The Blyvooruitzicht story is an urgent appeal to mining-based economies across the continent. To avoid companies abdicating their responsibilities, our organisations call on states to adopt strong legal frameworks and enforce human rights and environmental obligations. The authorities must also make mandatory the implementation of mitigation and environmental rehabilitation measures before the initiation of any liquidation process.

Socialists of course won't hold our breath awaiting such developments.

 Capitalism by its very nature is exploitative and came into the world 'oozing blood from every pore' and will continue to do as much as it can get away with until we make the earth the common heritage of all, in a post-capitalist, production for use socialist society of free access, common ownership and democratic control.

Land reform is no reform

South Africa has a history of colonisation, racial domination, and racially-based land dispossession. Black people were forced off the land they owned and they depended for their livelihoods through numerous legislative policies and other coercive measures. In 1994, South Africa’s democratic government implemented land reform to rectify these past racial injustices, to correct skewed land ownership patterns and to alleviate poverty. There is a general agreement that land reform has been a failure and needs to be sped up. Research shows that between 70% to 90% of the projects (including land restitution projects) have failed. The  study showed that beneficiaries remain poor 17 years after being given their land back. Most are unable to generate a livelihood from agriculture and depend on state social grants for survival. Beneficiaries were able to rejoice at having their land back, but they have been unable to escape poverty.

What’s gone wrong?

The Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies notes that: “South African land reform beneficiaries have been victims of unworkable project designs, largely irrelevant to their livelihood possibilities, aspirations and abilities.”

Land reform has contributed little to helping beneficiaries earn a livelihood from the land. An important component of land reform was for the beneficiaries to become self-sufficient. Projects are designed in a way that favours capital intensive commercial farming unsuitable to the beneficiaries’ circumstances. Other reasons include inadequate post-settlement support, lack of skills, poor planning and infighting within communities. Findings show that land beneficiaries have been virtually neglected by the government.

One farmer commented on the absence of support: “We don’t get the necessary support from the government man! We don’t get it, at all, they are not interested in coming to support us and help us to give us something … They should come here and make a workshop and call us together, those who are interested in farming and stuff like that, there would be a lot of people because I am not the only one… They don’t support us! They do give the land, and what’s the reason of giving people land and then not helping them? Because we need a tractor, we need this and that, we need seeds…” 

Giving people land and then depriving them of appropriate support to earn a living from the land is regressive. It is self-defeating for the government to dump people on land without sufficient or relevant support. If land reform continues in its current fashion, its prospects are doomed.

Low wage South Africa

In South Africa people earning from R12,500 monthly ($860 or £700) are being classified in the group of the country’s wealthiest for government policy purposes It certainly isn’t enough for a life of luxury. You’d be hard-pressed to do much saving and investing on that income or even afford a comfortable home with a home loan.

More than 16m South Africans are desperately poor, while 6.5m with monthly salaries from R12,500 and up are among the country’s richest, according to the research presented to the government. Imraan Valodia and David Francis of the University of the Witwatersrand were part of a team that suggested the country’s minimum wage should be a monthly R3 500 ($250; £200) on the basis of these figures.

6.2 million or 47% of working people in South Africa earn less than R3,500, while 4.6 million (35%) earn less than R2,000 per month.  1.1 million domestic workers – 887 000 of them women – earning less than R3,500 per month. In community services, 1.2 million workers earn less than R3,500 per month. Approximately 800,000 of them are women. The median wage for employed women in 2015 was only 77.1% of the wage for employed men. This means that a woman in the middle of the wage distribution earns only 77 cents for every R1 her male counterpart earns.

What is clear from this research is that the yawning gap between rich and poor is a problem that won’t be solved by playing around with the minimum wage level.

http://www.biznews.com/sa-investing/2016/11/29/wage-research-government-rich/

Nelson Mandela

The past two weeks the media has been filled with the death of Mandela and the tributes to his life. One radio station even discussed the possibility of sainthood for him but likely would have been hard-pressed to find the two requisite miracles. Leaders from around the world rushed to get in on the photo opportunities and profit from the political clout that came from association with Mandela. Not bad for someone who, until quite recently, was considered a terrorist by the world's powers and would certainly be highlighted as such by today's security agencies.

Mandela was born into the Thembu royal family and attended Fort Hare and Witwatersrand Universities, studying law. He was, then, not typical of the average black inhabiting South Africa. He became involved in fighting against colonialism throughout Africa and particularly the apartheid laws of the ruling, white-dominated South African National Party. He secretly joined the South African Communist Party that was committed to overthrowing their white masters and was not averse to using sabotage methods. Mandela eventually ran afoul of the law and was tried and convicted of conspiracy against the state and jailed where he spent twenty-seven years.

Mandela deserves our respect for his life-long struggle against the injustices perpetrated against the Africans by the colonial powers; for his tenacity in enduring almost three decades in a prison system that would not have been sympathetic; for sticking to his fight and for helping to break the apartheid government and establish a democratic system. He became the first black president of South Africa and the first to be to be there through a democratic election. Socialists see this as a step towards socialism as, theoretically, the possibility of electing a socialist government now exists. The working class of South Africa now has a choice, assuming that socialism gets on the ballot.

Unfortunately, as we look at the state of the poor black in South Africa today, all of the above has not translated into security and wealth for the general population. Indeed, poverty has risen, unemployment is still at least as high, and recently government troops fired on striking miners killing dozens. Socialists contend that governments in a capitalist system must uphold the rights of the capitalist class over those of the working class and this is exactly what the black dominated government of the country did. At Mandela's memorial, current president, Jacob Zuma was roundly booed showing the depth of displeasure at current affairs. Apart from the poverty and unemployment among the masses, Zuma stands accused of failing to address the AIDS problem and of corruption and spending $21 million in renovations to his home. Recently, the largest South African union, The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa, withdrew its support of President Zuma's ANC Party.

So what went wrong? Unfortunately, socialism as understood by the World Socialist Movement - a society based on the common ownership of the means of producing and distributing wealth, organized democratically in the interests of all mankind - was not on anyone's agenda. The fight was a narrow one to end the excesses of apartheid and domination by the white ruling class. Of course it would be nice to free the workers from economic poverty, establish proper health, housing standards, and give economic opportunity to all. This is not on the agenda of the capitalist system. Ever vaster sums of wealth must be funneled, through the giant corporations, to the large investors. It is a competitive system that pits corporation against corporation in a never-ending scramble for investment by paying higher returns on investment. Everything else must be sacrificed - quality, health and safety of the workers, the environment - or pay the consequences of going out of business or being taken over by bigger fish. This was not clearly understood by Mandela and his party and once in power they were forced to operate much as any other government does or see economic collapse in their country.

Capital dominates, absolutely. Many other so-called socialist governments have met the same fate after the initial euphoria - Chavez in Venezuela and the Brazilian Workers' Party come to mind. The road to good intentions is paved with the dead bodies of Left Wing governments. In capitalism, they cannot compete with their business- oriented opposition who simply want to do what is best for business and therefore receive all the benefits that money can furnish. Mandela and his successors, then, are doomed to failure because they never had a truly class/socialist consciousness. Rather than fighting the effects of colonialism and apartheid, he and his compatriots should have been fighting for a system change from capitalism to socialism that would have ended not just the two main objects of their efforts, but the domination of capital altogether.

The World Socialist Movement is the only non-capitalist alternative that will, once power is gained, disband the nation state and its central government and devolve power to locally elected councils and, indeed, disband itself as political parties are expressions of class and once common ownership is established, there will not be any classes.

Socialist Party of Canada

2014

Class War - Fees Must End

Protests have raged on South African campuses in recent weeks as students demand free university tuition for all in a nation still riven by inequality and racial divisions. Bishop Ziphozihle Siwa, the head of the South African Council of Churches, says that the students’ grievances started well before they were born, even before he was born -- when the racist apartheid regime drew a hard line between black and white, rich and poor. Apartheid may have formally ended, but the fees make attending university impossible for many black youth.

"The aftermath of apartheid has not been sufficiently dealt with. You are allowed to go around, but economic marginalization hasn’t changed much and opportunity certainly isn’t equal," student council representative Thalo Mokoena explained. "It’s no way as bad as it was, but there are parallels with back then." 

The protests are showing no sign of stopping after they first emerged late last year. In recent weeks, protests have swept across most of South Africa’s 26 universities, with clashes between students and police at some campuses. Some universities have been forced to suspend classes, citing security concerns.

The latest round of protests was spurred by September’s announcement that universities could raise fees by as much as 8 percent. The government has been obliged to pledge to cover that increase for lower-income students, which is about 75 percent of the student population. The government says it does not have enough money to provide free higher education.

The issue is not exclusive to South Africa. Many students who graduate around the world end up doing so with huge amounts of debt. The protests are also a proxy against wider inequality that still persists in the country. The universities have become a class battle-field

Cosatu Eastern Cape Strike Call

Cosatu Eastern Cape is finalising its mobilisation working with its affiliates for the upcoming one-day national strike , 7th October . 

This is in response to many challenges facing workers within our Province and across the world. Workers still continue to work under appalling and unhealthy and unsafe working conditions in both public and private sectors. In our Province ,there are still companies that are using labour brokers and refusing even to comply with the latest so called regulations by government. Farm workers are worse off as they are not treated as human beings with their rights being violated on a daily basis by the farmers.

We will have a march on the 7th October , gathering at North End stadium in Buffalo City Metro at 1000 and proceed to the Department of Labour to hand over our memorandum of demands to both Border Kei Chamber of Business and the
Department of Labour Management. 

The following will be amongst the list of our demands:

1. An immediate stoppage of outsourcing by all Provincial Departments

2. An end to the use of private lawyers on ordinary disciplinary cases by the Provincial government
3. Payment of all outstanding service benefits to workers
4. Filling of all vacant funded posts
5. Demand the total banning of labour brokers
6. Demand the Provincial Government to put an end to the planned building of E-toll gates on the wild coast road
7. Demand compliance with Occupational Health & Safety Standards in all workplaces
8. Fight for the scrapping of the Taxation Amendment Law
9. Demand the implementation of NHI
10. Demand the implementation of Free Education.

Issued by COSATU Eastern Cape

Wage Drop in South Africa

South African workers took home much smaller disposable salaries in August 2016 than they did in August 2015, as inflation accelerated but growth in wages slowed.

The BankservAfrica disposable salary index, released on Wednesday, shows employees took home 2.5% less in August than a year earlier — the third consecutive month of declines in real disposable salaries. "For the first eight months, real take-home salaries declined by 0.4%," it said.

"While workers received salary increases in nominal terms, the real value for these ended up being lower due to the higher rate of inflation," BankservAfrica head of knowledge and risk services Caroline Belrose said.

Against apartheid (1990)

Book Review from the April 1990 issue of the Socialist Standard

Subverting Apartheid: Education, Information and Culture under Emergency Rule. By Jim Corrigall, Elaine Unterhalter and Gillian Slovo. International Defence & Aid Fund for Southern Africa, 1990.

In a world of objectionable regimes, South Africa is in the forefront of those states in which the blatant repression of the majority population is systematically pursued. Any publication that aims to present the facts about South Africa necessarily involves a catalogue of horror. Subverting Apartheid by a group of anti-apartheid militants is no exception to this rule.

It examines the effects on the media, education and culture of Emergency Rule introduced in June 1986 and only recently relaxed and provides detailed evidence of the extent to which the apartheid regime attempted to justify and maintain its position at whatever cost to the majority. The period of Emergency Rule magnified the measures that the state was prepared to undertake in an already repressive regime This study is largely descriptive in presenting information about repression in South Africa even if it was written before the release of Mandela and the unbanning of the ANC, but it also pinpoints the failure of the state apparatus to stifle unrest and resistance.

The other concern of the study is to draw attention to those groups and individuals pursuing what it calls "the goal of national liberation, creation of a united, non-racial and democratic South Africa". The attempt to suppress what the Pretoria government viewed as revolutionary movements by a counter-revolutionary strategy did not succeed:

In spite of inflicting thousands of deaths and detaining and arresting tens of thousands, it was clear that the forces of democratic resistance were not crushed or demobilised but adapted to the conditions of extreme repression.

It is this failure to subvert resistance that is a positive aspect of a period and place in history often associated with the purely negative. It enables the reader to find some relief from the evidence of over 5.000 deaths since 1984, of the 40,000 people who were detained without trial, and of the host of regulations restricting the activities of anyone who sought to oppose apartheid.

There is a tremendous resilience which adapts to such nightmare conditions and perpetuates the struggle against repression even in areas specifically targeted by the total might of the state apparatus. Given the restrictions imposed on information emerging from South Africa, this study provides valuable evidence of what actually took place. It also helps counter some of the propaganda of the South African Department of Information whose budget for 1988-89 was R31,600,000.

Questions can, and should, be raised about the nature of the society being pursued under the guise of "national liberation", particularly as it assumes that non-racial democracy in South Africa would eradicate exploitation and oppression. What cannot be underestimated, however, is the irrepressibility, organisational abilities and adaptability of individuals and groups surviving and putting forward ideas under the most horrendous conditions. South Africa may be a byword for repression but it should also be recognised as a symbol of the resilience and resistance of the repressed.

Philip Bentley

Migrant workers in South Africa

Southern Africa has a long history of internal and cross-border labor migration. In South Africa in particular, a country where unemployment has hovered at 25 percent over the last two decades, migrants have been regarded as a threat to citizens’ jobs and are the targets of xenophobic threats and violence. Amid those xenophobic attacks against migrants in South Africa, anthropologist Zaheera Jinnah defends their presence, arguing that they contribute to the labor market with their mixed skills and informal employment.

In fact, the number and proportion of international migrant workers in South Africa is small, and internal migration is the more common form of mobility. A 2012 national labor force survey found that, of the 33 million people in the South African labor force, only 4 percent, or 1.2 million, were international migrants while 14 percent, or 4.7 million, were internal migrants.

More than a third of internal migrants in South Africa came from two major, poorer provinces: Limpopo (21 percent) and the Eastern Cape (17 percent) and moved toward the two provinces with the biggest economies in South Africa, Gauteng and the Western Cape. The latter have higher than national rates of in-migration of both domestic and international migrants.

International migrant workers do have better labor market outcomes than domestic migrants or locals – 77 percent participate in the labor force (compared to the national average of 55 percent) and 16 percent are unemployed (compared to the national average of 25 percent).

First, international migrants occupy a particularly precarious position in the labor market, characterized by insecurity and informality. International migrants are considerably less likely to be waged workers than domestic migrants or locals, and more likely to be own-account workers, unpaid family workers or self-employed. Further, 50 percent of international migrants were employed informally compared to a national average of 28 percent.

Second, gender matters. Men are more likely than women to move across an international border, but not within it. Men constitute 60 percent of the 1.2 million international migrants of working age in South Africa. However, the gender distribution is more even among domestic migrants, of which 52 percent are men. Women in South Africa, regardless of birthplace, tend to do poorly in the labor market in comparison to men. Women have a lower labor force participation rate at 49 percent, compared to 62 percent for men, and a higher unemployment rate at 28 percent, compared to 23 percent for men.

Third, migrants in South Africa are working in a mix of different types of occupations – 24 percent in managerial, professional or technical jobs, 28 percent in elementary and domestic work, and 21 percent in crafts, likely as self-employed artisans. And while the majority of migrants are from Southern Africa, there are also considerable numbers of workers from the rest of Africa, Europe, North America and Asia.

Finally, education matters in determining employment patterns. In general, the majority of South Africa’s workforce has a low educational status, with 45 percent of the working age population not completing secondary school, and only 10 percent of the population holding tertiary degrees. In contrast, 13 percent of international migrants have a post-school qualification.

It is incorrect to assume that migrants are taking locals’ jobs. Instead, the mix of different skill levels and high levels of informal and self-employment among migrants suggests that they are contributing in various ways to a labor market characterized by low levels of education and skills, and an economy with few formal sector jobs. What the data does strongly indicate is that low-skilled regional migrants, women in particular, face a precarious and vulnerable position in the labor market.

These are the real causes for concern in South Africa – the inability of rural areas, towns and cities to provide services and jobs for an increasing population, the lack of employment opportunities in a stagnant economy, the prevalence of informal work, and strong gendered differentials in accessing the labor market.

Corporate Crimesouth

In South Africa greedy businessmen in collusion and running cartels are driving millions of people into poverty.

The World Bank recently reported on its analysis of four of 70 cartels detected by the South African Competition Commission between 2005 and 2015. It shows that if cartels operating in the maize, wheat, poultry and pharmaceutical sectors were to be broken up, more than 200 000 people would be raised out of poverty. Cartels operating in the wheat sector overcharge on products by between 7% and 42%, in poultry [25%] and in pharmaceuticals [between 10% and 15%]. The inflated charges result in price increases in these sectors of an average of 10%. Products from these sectors make up a large proportion of the expenditure on food of the poor.

"Spending on wheat, maize, poultry and pharmaceuticals accounts for 15.6% of the consumption basket of the poorest 10% of the population," said the World Bank.

Spending on wheat-derived products accounts for the biggest portion of the basic-food costs of poor people. The World Bank, using data from the South African Income and Expenditure Survey of 2010-2011, said prices inflated by collusion led to poor households having to go without medicines so that they could eat.

Simon Roberts, director of the Centre for Competition, Regulation and Economic Development at the University of Johannesburg, said prices in South Africa, as internationally, were generally marked up by 15% to 25% more than if there had been no collusion. Food pricing expert Merwyn Abrahams, of the Pietermaritzburg Agency for Community Social Action, said a study that looked at the effects of food-price inflation on low-income households showed that last month the cost of their food basket increased by R318.67 compared to last year to R1,942.42 - its highest ever.

"Maize meal was the main driver of food inflation, with the cost of a 25kg bag increasing by 39.6% compared to last year," Abrahams said.

"The situation is really bad," said Competition Commission spokesman Itumeleng Lesofe. "There are cartels in almost every sector of the economy. The commission has uncovered cartels in food, infrastructure and construction, automotive, healthcare, financial services and energy."

$300,000 a month for knowing people

 South African businessman Niko Shefer is siphoning millions of dollars from the Zimbabwe National Roads Administration as facilitation fee for the $206 million loan accessed from the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) to refurbish the Plumtree-Mutare Highway.

It emerged Zinara is depositing a staggering $300 000 in Shefer's FNB account in South Africa monthly and that contract is running for 10 years. All Shefer did to deserve such a golden handshake was to link Zinara and DBSA.

He charged 2 percent of the loan amount extended to the road fund. At the lapse of the 10-year contract between Zinara and Shefer, the road fund would have paid him $36 million. The money that Shefer is receiving is over and above the interest that Zinara is paying to DBSA for the $206 million loan.

Apartheid Must Go (1966)

50 Years Ago: Apartheid Must Go

The Socialist Party is opposed to Apartheid, just as to any other policy or movement based on colour prejudice. We think racism is foolish, unscientific and against the interests of the working class. We can see that the South African government's slogan of Apartheid ('separation') is really a hypocritical screen for baasskap (white domination), and that all manner of atrocities and hatreds flourish under the Verwoerd tyranny.

Our attack on apartheid is quite distinct from the attacks made on it by other organisations such as the Labour Party, Communist Party, Christian Action, etc. We do not support the "anti-apartheid" movement.

Socialism will be a world wide democratic community without private or government ownership of the means of production and will mean the end of Apartheid, together with a lot of other major human problems like wars, slumps and poverty.

To detach ourselves from other organisations who attack apartheid is no sectarian quibble: the most that members of the anti-Apartheid Movement can suggest to replace Apartheid is something rather like we have in Britain today. In other words, they want to swap one system of oppression for another. The only 'equality' they want for the races of South Africa consists of the equal 'privileges' of wage-slavery.

The best interests of industrial capitalism in South Africa call for the abandonment of Apartheid policies and the putting into effect of social reforms aimed at integrating Africans into the labour force as better trained exploitable wage workers. However, in view of the historical background of South Africa, capitalism has to adjust itself to a political situation that expresses the deeply entrenched prejudice that exists. (….)

The Socialist Party of Great Britain is with the working class of South Africa in their struggle for democracy, for the vote and for the right to strike. But more than that, we work for the day when black, white, coloured and Indian workers in South Africa will unite with workers all over the world to remove wage-slavery and establish Socialism.

(from article by Steele, Socialist Standard, September 1966, republished  September 2016)

Low wages in South Africa

Last month, a Labour Court appeals judgment referred to the salary paid to a cashier by Woolworths as shocking.

“At the time of her dismissal, she was working at the appellant’s store at Maponya Mall in Soweto earning a shocking monthly salary of R2 090.21,” reads the judgment.

The reality is that, for more than five million South Africans, a job is not a ticket out of poverty because they earn too little.

Despite discussions about a national minimum wage having been on the cards for the past two years, very little has happened.

The National Economic Development and Labour Council established a national minimum wage advisory panel two weeks ago and it hopes to give its first round of feedback in October. The seven-member panel will also have to make a call on how much the minimum wage should be. Trade union federation Cosatu is asking for it to be about R4 500.

South Africa's White Poor

A fraction of South Africa's white population lives in poverty similar to that of many of the country's black township residents. They are grappling with the same problems.

Barefoot children play with whatever they can find in front of the shanties in which they live. Idle adults sit on stools in front of their shacks; it just gets too hot inside. This was a common scenario for black families during South Africa's decades of apartheid. For many, living conditions haven't improved since the country declared statutory equality in 1994. Leigh Du Preez, the founder of the South African Family Relief Project (SAFRP), says that policies designed to redress decades of enforced inequality have not had the intended effect. But she is not talking about black families: Du Preez says more and more white people have been left unemployed and hungry, having to fend for themselves amid growing racial tensions. "People think that this can't be true, but this is how my people live," Du Preez says.

It is hardly surprising there is little awareness about the issue of growing white poverty. Less than 10 percent of South Africa's population is white, according to the 2014 census, and less than 10 percent of whites live in this kind of poverty. Du Preez explains there are almost 500 informal settlements of white people across South Africa, asserting that "no one will help them."

Munsieville is an hour northwest of Johannesburg, a former landfill, with more than 300 families living in close quarters. "There was nothing at all here before. There was no sanitation, no water, no electricity. Now there's one portable toilet for every three families. It stinks everywhere," she says, adding that the unsanitary conditions have led to outbreaks of bronchitis, pneumonia, and chicken pox.

It's not that the lives of the white camp residents in Munsieville are worse than those of the black community. On the contrary, the vast majority of black township residents are also struggling to survive.

"They are all trying to make this place as livable as possible, with whatever little they have," says Marius Du Preez, Leigh's husband.

A foreign reporter once suggested poor white people might deserve to be in dire straits after benefitting from decades of apartheid rule. Du Preez has heard that argument before: "I can understand when foreign people say those things about us. But they don't understand that apartheid wasn't about [creating] poverty. It was about power and control, and yes, it was bad.

"But we have more black squatter camps under the current government than we ever did under apartheid," Du Preez says. "Plus, we have all these white squatter camps as well. How is that better?"

http://www.dw.com/en/south-africa-whites-feel-the-pain-of-poverty-too/a-19375561

Gates and the Mandela Legacy

Patrick Bond of the Wits University School of Governance in Johannesburg and the University of KwaZulu-Natal Centre for Civil Society in Durban has written an article critical of the philanthro-capitalism of Bill Gates (who is worth $80 billion, up $24 billion from 2011) which he describes as ‘market-orieted, technology-centric’ specializing ‘ in top-down technicist quick-fixes – ‘silver bullets’ – which often backfire on the economic shooting range of extreme corporate influence and neoliberal policies.’ Microsoft’s offshore tax-avoidance policies today earn the company more money than Gates gives annually in donations (less than $4 billion/year).

 Global Justice Now’s Polly Jones complained in a report, Gates’ “influence is so pervasive that many actors in international development, which would otherwise critique the policy and practice of the foundation, are unable to speak out independently as a result of its funding and patronage.”

* Gates’ power threatens African food in part due to his advocacy of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), which benefit agro-corporates such as Monsanto but wipe out local seeds. In Kenya, Gates’ people and US AID appear to have succeeded in reversing a GMO-seed ban (only four African states allow GMOs). The Gates-supported Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa “advised and lobbied the governments of Ghana, Tanzania, and Malawi, among others, to adopt pro-business seed and land policy reforms,” according to a critique by a progressive food-sovereignty NGO, Oakland Institute.

* To address species-threatening climate change, a rather confused Gates favours ‘Terrapower’ nuclear, a dangerous distraction from the urgent need to both expand renewable energy and radically reduce fossil-fuel abuse. As Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson bragged about Gates at his recent AGM, “there’s no space between he and I.”

* Privatised health and education are Gates’ speciality but in India, a Gates-funded trial on the genital cancer-causing disease Human papillomavirus was cancelled by the government because thousands of girls aged 10-14 were victims of ethics violations such as forged consent forms and lack of health insurance; seven died. The case is now in the country’s Supreme Court.

In Durban the Gates-backed ‘Urine Diversion’ toilets imposed by the municipality on nearly 100 000 poor black households are considered a new version of the hated ‘bucket system.’ Higher-income residents of Durban – including in the nearby, traditionally-white western suburbs – don’t suffer this discriminatory indignity. Not only does Durban’s retired water director now offer sanitation consulting to Gates, so too is the top Gates Foundation policy official, Geoffrey Lamb, a South African.

 Once a hard-core ‘Marxist’ (and son-in-law of ‘colonialism of a special type’ inventor Michael Harmel), Lamb’s work once included path-breaking class analysis of the Tanzanian peasantry, and he was a PhD advisor when SA trade and industry minister Rob Davies wrote his ‘Marxist’ thesis at Sussex University. After an ideological U-turn, Lamb was central to developing a ‘homegrown’ structural adjustment strategy working at the highest levels of the World Bank during the 1980s, and especially in its application inside the African National Congress during the early 1990s.

The most damage done within South Africa was Gates’ promotion of intellectual property (IP) rights. Gates got rich from IP illegitimately acquired thanks to blatantly anti-competitive practices, such as bundling Windows with the slow, security flaw-ridden Internet Explorer web-browser, according to US prosecutors. The emails that Gates and his colleagues sent each other unveiled their cutthroat, illegal approach to IT, notwithstanding the internet’s massive government subsidies. Long-term monopoly patents were granted not only to Gates for his Microsoft software, but for life-saving medicines. IP became a fatal barrier to millions of HIV+ people who, thanks to Big Pharma’s profiteering, were denied AIDS medicines which cost R150 000/year fifteen years ago. The Gates Foundation was part of the problem by insisting on Merck-branded drugs in its Botswana AIDS clinics, complained Zackie Achmat of the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) in 2001. With TAC instead demanding and finally – in the wake of at least 330 000 avoidable AIDS deaths – winning access to generic medicines made locally, the cost to African governments became negligible and today nearly four million people in South Africa alone get the drugs, which has raised life expectancy from 52 in 2004 to 62 today.

The 1990s witnessed a series of debilitating concessions to multinational corporations by Mandela’s African National Congress. Mandela Foundation director Verne Harris acknowledges, “Under Madiba’s leadership the ANC embraced a neoliberal agenda with unseemly haste and we’re paying a terrible price for that now.” Added Harris, “We’re only beginning to understand the nature of this phenomenon. From the late 1980s, a huge seduction was underway, of the liberation movement by capital and it’s playing out in all kinds of destructive ways now, from arms deals to corruption.”

South Africa's rich CEOs

South Africa’s PwC’s latest executive director’s remuneration report shows that the pay spectrum across the JSE, the median salary for executives has increased by 12% between 2014 and 2015 to R3.7 million, where CEOs saw the median salary jump by 10.7%, to R4.6 million, with the upper quartile seeing an 8% increase to R7.7 million.

In global markets, it is becoming increasingly more common for companies to cap bonus pay to 100% of an exec’s guaranteed salary – this is not in effect in South Africa.

http://businesstech.co.za/news/wealth/130404/this-is-how-much-south-africas-top-ceos-get-in-bonus-pay/

Abstaining from voting

The African National Congress has forgotten what poverty looks like because they are now living well, a Khutsong resident in Carletonville said on Thursday.

Moeketsi Msiya told News24 he would not be voting for the ruling party because it always forgot "the people at the bottom". 

"The ANC only looks after themselves… If I vote for these people, they will forget about me," the 37-year-old said outside his home during a door-to-door campaign by the ANC. Msiya was born and bred in Khutsong and described it as a place which had no progress. "The youth here are addicted to nyaope and alcohol starting from 15 years."

He said they often dropped out of school and he didn't blame them because there was nothing motivating them to stay in school. "There is no progress here," he said, visibly angry and frustrated.

He said come August 3, he would abstain from voting as he did not trust any of the parties running for local government elections.

"I will only vote for someone who knows what it is to be poor, someone who knows what it is like to eat just plain pap and gravy for supper. I will only vote for someone who I know lives among the people and knows our struggles," he said.

Nikiwe Kutta vowed never to vote for the ANC again after it had made them "so many empty promises". Kutta told News24 she was no longer interested in what the ruling party had to say because their words did not translate into actions. "I'm tired of the ANC. They only give us empty promises… and ask us to vote but I will never. I would rather vote for the white man," she says.