Boston forum highlights S. African and U.S. struggles 'Racism is the common experience of these two societies'

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4 SOCIALIST ACTION JUNE 1991 By HENLE A Bantustan is the same thing as a ghetto. Police running wild and amok or pass-book laws [are] like stop-and-search [in Boston]. Anyone can walk up to you because of how you look and demand that you go up against a wall and be searched. ... There are so many parallels."

These words of the Rev. Graylan EllisHagler captured the thinking of all the participants in the May 2 Boston Socialist Action forum, "The Transformation of South Africa into a New Society."

Held at the Rev. Hagler's Church of the United Community, the forum brought together leaders of the South African movement for liberation and leaders of Boston's Black community.

Dr. Neville Alexander, Chairperson of WOSA (the Workers' Organization for Socialist Action, in South Africa) was the keynote speaker. He shared the podium with the Rev. Ellis-Hagler, who is an independent candidate for Boston mayor; Minister Rodney X, assistant minister of Muhammed's Mosque #11; and Prof. Chris Nteta, a supporter of the Black Consciousness Movement in South Africa. New Nation, a Boston-area Black youth organization, gave greetings. Roger Sheppard chaired for Socialist Action.

Dr. Alexander was imprisoned on Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela was held, for 11 years. His appearance in the United States was a unique opportunity to hear a veteran anti-apartheid activist and partisan of the South African workers' movement.

While noting the new opportunities in South Africa today, Alexander spoke of the Apartheid regime stalls (continued from page 1: “See pages 12-13. Blacks protest stalling by apartheid regime”)

Mandela case. What right does a white judiciary have to try a victim of apartheid? Only the Black majority could do so in a fair manner. Only in a democratic and nonracial South Africa is that possible.

For 27 years, Nelson Mandela and thousands of others were political prisoners held by an immoral regime. Many exiles are still not allowed permanent residency in the country of their birth.

Thousands of Black South Africans have been or are still prisoners of the state. Since May, some 200 political prisoners have been on a hunger strike to protest their incarceration. Meanwhile, the white and Black vigilante gangs—who terrorize the Black population at will and assassinate anti-apartheid accurrent situation as a difficult passage. He said that the white rulers' strategy is to divide the forces of change through fragmentation along ethnic lines, and also to try to develop a sell-out layer of leaders who will accept minor changes that leave the fundamental power relations intact.

Promoting workers' interests The recent founding of WOSA [see Socialist Action, March 1991] represents a potentially important counter-weight to the maneuvers of the ruling class. WOSA, while still modest in forces, was founded to give a political expression to the workers' movement.

Prof. Nteta remarked that among the many political groups in South Africa, "what WOSA is doing is coming out very clearly that South Africa has to be a socialist state."

For Dr. Alexander, the current changes must be part of a strategy to form a united front and to gain power for the workers' movement: "We support and will mobilize support for those aspects of negotiations [with the racist government] as a political strategy which will promote the interests of the working class."

In regard to the idea of a democratically elected constituent assembly, he pointed out: "We support it in the most consistent and radical way—more than any other group in the country, in fact. But the alternative [to negotiations alone] is to continue the class struggle for fundamental social reforms such that in the balance of forces, the working class in South Africa is strengthened all the time."

Racism, as Dr. Alexander stated, "is the common experience of these two societies, tivists-get off scot free.

The white regime is under pressure to pardon Mandela because of its bloodstained hands. Will it? De Klerk says justice is in the hands of the courts.

De Klerk's regime is maneuvering on the land question as well. It put out a carrot in March when it announced plans to abolish the hated racial restrictions on land ownership. Whites (less than 13 percent of the population) control over 86 percent of South African land and property. Blacks will soon be able to legally buy land, if they can afford it.

But the new provisions do not compensate Blacks for land stolen from them by the apartheid system. In addition, white neighborhoods can still set their own norms and the United States and South Africa" All of the speakers saw the closeness of the oppression of Black people in the United States and in South Africa. The absence of formal apartheid laws in the United States does not prevent segregation.

The ruling powers of South Africa and the United States, who are very friendly to each other, use common methods to keep Black people oppressed. They encourage "Black on Black" violence to divide and drugs to destroy. They selectively attack leaders-from the FBI harassment of Black elected officials to the trial of Winnie Mandela.

As the Rev. Hagler said: "There are so many parallels. Economic segregation: ... Some people have the benefit and the privilege of that economic system and some people are closed out of that economic system. That is what goes on in South Africa, and that is what goes on in the United States particularly when it comes to Latinos and Blacks and other people of color."

Dr. Alexander explained, "Although the demographic relationships are very different, the power relationships in these two societies are very similar.

"The white minority owns virtually the entire country. The future of South Africa could look like the present of this country 30 years after the civil rights movement thought it had succeeded in freeing the Black people."

For this reason, the struggle to end apartheid must be connected to the kinds of democratic and social struggles Blacks in the United States must wage.

Bringing forces together

In their struggles, the South African and U.S. anti-racist movements can take inspirastandards after residential segregation is legally ended. In other words, few if any Blacks will be let in.

After protests, De Klerk announced on May 20 that an advisory commission would be established to review land claims by Blacks. They could appeal to the commission to get their land returned. But H.J. Kriel (the Minister of Planning, Provincial Affairs, and Housing) made it clear that the government would not encourage land returns or compensation. "The government," Kriel said, " is still of the opinion that a program of restitution is not practical or financially viable."

Racist white farmers in the Western Transvaal took the law in their own hands on May 11. They used arms to try and drive a group of Black landless squatters off disused farmland. For the first time since 1922, Rodney X speaks Rodney X, assistant minister of Muhammed's Mosque #11, was among the speakers at the May 2 forum on South Africa sponsored by Boston Socialist Action. Below are excerpts from his talk.

In the name of Allah and his messenger, the Honorable Elijah Mohammed, A Salaam Alaikum. For those of you not familiar with that greeting, it means simply "peace."

Our sojourn in America is appalling. We act as if nothing ever happened to us—as if we're free as free can be. We're more enslaved now than we ever were. Because the chains are now in the minds of the masses of peopleeven white people.

The government plays too many tricks. And when you look at the situation in South Africa, there's a serious similarity. You have 30 million Blacks who are under the control of a little more than 5 million whites. In the land that belongs to them. All you need is one man, one vote and its over—good night!

What does the oppressor fear? He fears the rise of a people who have been oppressed for thousands of years. For there's a code in the universe that there's a specific time when people rise up and leaders come from the bosom of the masses of the people. And they produce a change-regardless of how many guns you have. ...

So it's best for us to gird up our loins and really get in this movement-of making a change in the world. Because South Africa will change. Make no mistake about it!

tion from each other.

The Rev. Hagler noted that "understanding the international struggle only helps to clarify what our agenda should be at home." He pointed out that the struggles of people in Africa and Asia were 'one of the things that Dr. Martin Luther King talked about" and which helped prepare his movement in the 1960s.

The Rev. Hagler's mayoral campaign is centered in Boston's Black community. It is projected as a "crusade for work, hope and dignity." He has been in the forefront of labor and Black community struggles in Boston-opposing stop-and-frisk policies, supporting the Greyhound strike, picketing construction sites that do not hire Black workers, and working for many other causes.

In closing, Dr. Alexander noted the developing dialogue and common concerns of anti-racist activists in the United States and South Africa: "We can learn from one another, we can teach one another, we can act jointly in many ways."

He pointed out that racism "is a basic issue that affects both these societies and on which we can act together, not simply as solidarity movements (we are that in any case) but movements that have similar interests and therefore similar goals to struggle for-—and particularly because of the connections between the governments and the ruling classes of these two societies."

Dr. Alexander concluded that this forum could be one activity "upon which we can build."

the security shot thugs.

All over South Africa, squatters are taking over disused farmland to live on and build huts. The government now recognizes the existence of almost 900 squatter camps, with more than 2 million residents, in the country. That number is expected to sharply increase with the repeal of the "influx control" laws allowing Blacks to freely move around the country. There is high unemployment and lack of homes.

It is in this context that the ANC's first national conference in South Africa since it was banned in 1960 takes place in July in Durban. The youth wing of the organization especially wants more radical action to win a democratic South Africa. The new National Executive will likely be increased from 55 to 109 to accommodate the new generation of leaders.

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