The View from the Left The conference was largely the work of a group of South Africans who have gone into voluntary exile in order, so to speak, to support the South African revolution from the safe dis- tance of the UK. [...] Amazingly, some on the conference Left dreamed that a new socialist party might emerge, based around the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa), but the fact is, of course, that the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) have now completely taken over the politi- cal space to the left of the ANC, leaving even the SACP in queer street. [...] This originated in 1932 with the State’s refusal to abandon the gold standard and devalue the currency, as many other countries were doing in response to the Great Depression. [...] 5@Liberty, a product of the IRR 2 June 2014 – 8/2014 The diffi culty in ‘disciplining’ capital In the context of the conference, my views were heretical and unpopular, but discussion of my paper was nevertheless somewhat desultory. [...] An end to South African ‘exceptionalism’ One of the most notable contributions to the conference came from Alexander Beresford, an Edinburgh product now based at Leeds, who analysed the ANC in terms of the neo-patrimonial paradigm widely used to depict political parties elsewhere in Africa.
- Pages
- 6
- Published in
- Johannesburg, South Africa
