Racism After Apartheid , livre ebook

Series Editor: Vishwas Satgar
The crisis of Marxism in the late twentieth century was the crisis of orthodox and vanguardist Marxism associated mainly with hierarchical communist parties, and imposed, even as state ideology, as the correct Marxism. The Stalinisation of the Soviet Union and its eventual collapse exposed the inherent weaknesses and authoritarian mould of vanguardist Marxism. More fundamentally, vanguardist Marxism was rendered obsolete but for its residual existence in a few parts of the world, as well as within authoritarian national liberation movements in Africa and in China.
With the deepening crises of capitalism, a new democratic Marxism (or democratic historical materialism) is coming to the fore. Such a democratic Marxism is characterised in the following ways: Its sources span non-vanguardist grassroots movements, unions, political fronts, mass parties, radical intellectuals, transnational activist networks and parts of the progressive academy; It seeks to ensure that the inherent categories of Marxism are theorised within constantly changing historical conditions to find meaning; Marxism is understood as a body of social thought that is unfinished and hence challenged by the need to explain the dynamics of a globalising capitalism and the futures of social change; It is open to other forms of anti-capitalist thought and practice, including currents within radical ecology, feminism, emancipatory utopianism and indigenous thought; It does not seek to be a monolithic and singular school of thought but engenders contending perspectives; Democracy, as part of the heritage of people s struggles, is understood as the basis for articulating alternatives to capitalism and as the primary means for constituting a transformative subject of historical change.
This series seeks to elaborate the social theorising and politics of democratic Marxism.

Published in the series and available:
Michelle Williams and Vishwas Satgar (eds). 2013. Marxisms in the 21st Century: Crisis, Critique and Struggle. . : Johannesburg:Wits University Press.
Vishwas Satgar (ed.). 2015. Capitalism s Crises: Class Struggles in South Africa and the World. . : Johannesburg:Wits University Press.
Vishwas Satgar (ed.). 2018. The Climate Crisis: South African and Global Democratic Eco-Socialist Alternatives. . : Johannesburg:Wits University Press.
RACISM AFTER APARTHEID
Challenges for Marxism and Anti-Racism
Edited by Vishwas Satgar
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS
CHAPTER 1: The Anti-Racism of Marxism: Past and Present
Vishwas Satgar
PART ONE: AGAINST RACISM IN THE WORLD
CHAPTER 2: The International Indigenous Peoples’ Movement: A Site of Anti-Racist Struggle Against Capitalism
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
CHAPTER 3: Emancipation, Freedom or Taxonomy? What Does It Mean to be African?
Firoze Manji
CHAPTER 4: Colonialism, Apartheid and the Native Question: The Case of Israel/Palestine
Ran Greenstein
CHAPTER 5: The Role of Racism in the European ‘Migration Crisis’: A Historical Materialist Perspective
Fabian Georgi
CHAPTER 6: Hindutva, Caste and the ‘National Unconscious’
Aditya Nigam
CHAPTER 7: Marxism, Feminism and Caste in Contemporary India
Nivedita Menon
PART TWO: AGAINST RACISM IN SOUTH AFRICA
CHAPTER 8: The Reproduction of Racial Inequality in South Africa: The Colonial Unconscious and Democracy
Peter Hudson
CHAPTER 9: Democratic Marxism and the National Question: Race and Class in Post-Apartheid South Africa
Khwezi Mabasa
CHAPTER 10: Seven Theses on Radical Non-Racialism, the Climate Crisis and Deep Just Transitions: From the National Question to the Eco-cide Question
Vishwas Satgar
CHAPTER 11: Foreign Nationals are the ‘Non-Whites’ of the Democratic Dispensation
Sharon S. Ekambaram

CONCLUSION: Vishwas Satgar
CONTRIBUTORS
INDEX
Published in South Africa by:
Wits University Press
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www.witspress.co.za
Compilation Vishwas Satgar 2019
Chapters Individual contributors 2019
Published edition Wits University Press 2019
First published 2019
http://dx.doi.org.10.18772/22019033061
978-1-77614-306-1 (Paperback)
978-1-77614-307-8 (Web PDF)
978-1-77614-308-5 (EPUB)
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978-1-77614-463-1 (Hardback)
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This book is freely available through the OAPEN library ( www.oapen.org ) under a Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 Creative Commons License. ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ ).
The publication of this volume was made possible by funding from the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung and through a grant received from the National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences.

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Acknowledgements
T his volume owes a special debt to the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation. Without that support it would have been impossible to hold a contributors workshop in South Africa and to ensure the manuscript was completed for publication. The use of the conference venue at their office provided a conducive space for engagement during the contributors workshop. We are also grateful for the support given by the Co-operative and Policy Centre (COPAC), which played a central role in organising the workshop and inviting contributors and activists from various social movements and community organisations. The support given by the National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences has enabled the open access publication of this volume. Moreover, it is important to acknowledge the editorial assistance provided by Jane Cherry from COPAC. Her efforts were crucial for keeping things on track. The input from Sunanda Mathis and Nadia Karodia, working with Jane Cherry, are also appreciated. Special thanks to Professor Michelle Williams for her supportive feedback during this project. Finally, our sincerest appreciation to the team at Wits University Press, particularly Veronica Klipp, Roshan Cader and Corina van der Spoel, for supporting this volume and the Democratic Marxism series.
Acronyms and Abbreviations AIM American Indian Movement ANC African National Congress BIA Bureau of Indian Affairs BJP Bharatiya Janata Party Cosatu Congress of South African Trade Unions CPI Communist Party of India CPI(M) Communist Party of India (Marxist) CPSA Communist Party of South Africa CST colonialism of a special type EFF Economic Freedom Fighters EU European Union FBI Federal Bureau of Investigation GDP gross domestic product IITC International Indian Treaty Council IOM International Organization for Migration JNU Jawaharlal Nehru University LHR Lawyers for Human Rights ML Muslim League NASA National Aeronautics and Space Administration NGO non-governmental organisation OBC Other Backward Classes PAIGC African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde RSS Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh SACP South African Communist Party SAHRC South African Human Rights Commission UDF United Democratic Front UN United Nations UNHCR United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees US United States WCIP World Council of Indigenous Peoples WGIP Working Group on Indigenous Populations
CHAPTER 1
THE ANTI-RACISM OF MARXISM: PAST AND PRESENT
Vishwas Satgar
T here is no scientific basis for race and racism to be a part of social reality. Nonetheless, race as a mode of social categorisation and racism as a form of discrimination, violence and oppression persists in our twenty-first-century capitalist world. W.E.B. Du Bois prescience in The Souls of Black Folk presented us with a notion of the colour-line not just as a problem of the twentieth century, but also a problem that extends into the twenty-first-century world of deep capitalist globalisation. This long colour-line is marked by continuities and discontinuities and systemic racisms, but also contingent and conjunctural shifts engendering new racisms. Today, a new extreme right, neo-fascist white nationalisms, xenophobia, resurgent narrow black nationalisms, continued apartheid-like oppression of Palestine, further dispossessions of indigenous peoples and Islamophobia are all on the rise. The world is faced with an ugly problem, expressed through an over-inflation of racialised thinking and practices, in different historical contexts and places. With their rise and prevalence, these particular racisms and their oppressive impacts need to be understood as a matter of urgency. This volume contributes to this challenge by drawing on Marxist and non-Marxist perspectives, engaging in a dialogue with the historical role of Marxism in the struggle against racism and with movements confronting racism.
South Africa was ruled by one of the most heinous and brutalising racist regimes called apartheid from 1948 to 1994. This institutionalised form of racism had its roots in 350 years of capitalist development involving slavery, colonialism, genocidal violence and segregation. The white privilege entrenched in this society benefited the white minority, despite some disagreeing with apartheid while others were simply unaware of this racist reality. However, apartheid engendered resistance from the national liberation movements in South Africa, the global anti-apartheid movement and popular forces that played a vital role in confronting and ending this regime. The resistance to apartheid was built on a dream of a non-racial, non-sexist, egalitarian and democratic society. Yet, the promise of non-racial politics in advancing fundamental transform