The international terrain is not just an external reality, but is deeply embedded and intertwined with the national, just as the national terrain is deeply intertwined with the international.
On 14 April 2011, South Africa was formally invited to attend BRICSA (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) economic platform. This is indeed a very significant development, which the SACP should welcome as a potentially progressive platform through which we can advance the key economic growth and developmental objectives of the national democratic revolution.
It is important that the SACP, the Alliance, and indeed all progressive forces in our country to start a principled debate and engagement with the implications of South Africa joining Brics. It is important that we openly and honestly analyse both the dangers and the prospects for South Africa in joining this economic bloc.
It is well worth noting that both the liberal offensive and elements of the new tendency once more adopted a similar, and hostile approach, to some of these developments. Some from within the ranks of the national liberation movement have opportunistically attacked the role of China in our country and continent without at the same time advancing any strategic perspective or programme on South Africa's international relations and their importance in advancing some of our key goals in creating a new growth path for our country, to address the scourge of poverty and unemployment.
It is of course to be understood that liberals, and their offensive against the majoritarian and developmental character of our democracy will be deeply cynical if not oppositional to such developments. The substantive domestic agenda of the liberal offensive is to roll back any state intervention to transform the socio-economic conditions of the overwhelming majority of our people, the workers and the poor. It is an agenda that also seeks to delegitimize the ANC as a democratically elected organization that leads government. In this regard the liberal offensive will seek to rubbish any and all of the initiatives of the ANC-led government, including the joining of Brics.
The ideological foundations of the liberal offensive is that of seeking to permanently tie South Africa to western imperialist interests and to mortgage our economy to the highest imperialist bidder, working with domestic (predominantly white) capitalist interests. It is an agenda that seeks to subject South Africa, and reproduce its international relations, within the prism of the continued domination of European and North American economic and ideological interests in the political economy of post-apartheid South Africa.
The liberal offensive is therefore simultaneously colonial in its outlook. That is, for South Africa to develop, it must mimic and build even deeper relations with the West in general, and Europe in particular. This is daily reinforced by, amongst others, the large sections of the print media, whose paradigm in locating South Africa internationally is that of European imperialism. In addition, South African print media, with very few exceptions, is Eurocentric in its orientation, and only sees South Africa from the standpoint of literal downloads from European news sources e.g. Reuters and AFP. Recently one only has to look at the glowing praise of the British royal wedding, despite Zapiro's best efforts to characterize the wedding for what it is!
It is of course no wonder that South African media, and liberal, analyses of our international relations has been deeply cynical, if not outright oppositionist, to South Africa's joining of Brics. We are daily told that we do not have the 'market' reach of the other Brics countries, and we therefore do not, as a country deserve to be there. Yet no similar statements are made about the fact that our economic capacity in relation to North America and Europe is even worse, given the global strength of these economies. And instead there is an interesting silence: we do not belong in Brics, and yet nothing is said that in terms of these economic criteria we also 'do not belong' to the US-European economic axis. It is a silence that essentially wants to say South Africa should remain an 'economic (if not ideological) colony' of North America and Europe.
It is indeed a sad indictment that no serious analyses have been done thus far on the significance of the President's visit to all the Brics countries hardly two years into his term. But this is not accidental, as these relations pose a threat to the economic and ideological dominance of western imperialist interests in South Africa, and their South African domestic appendages.
The recent pronouncements by elements of the new tendency in our movement condemning the roles of China on the continent and in our country are informative, though not surprising. These recent outbursts against China may well be a reflection of the fact that elements of the new tendency have become deeply dependent on BEE benefactors who have very deep western imperialist relations, through, amongst others, the model of BEE that we have forged over the first 15 years of our democracy.
In fact the narrow BEE model we have followed during the first fifteen years of our democracy can be traced back to the US capital's Sullivan code of the late 1970s, whose objective was to co-opt the emergent black petty bourgeoisie in South Africa, rather than to transform the colonial character of our economy. The origins of the Sullivan code were to create a black (petty) bourgeoisie that would embrace capitalism post-apartheid, thus protecting the semi-colonial character of South Africa's growth path.
Brics, whilst not automatically and inherently, repositioning the economic trajectory of our country, it nevertheless creates huge opportunities for transforming the semi-colonial character of our current growth path through the deepening of mutually beneficial economic relations. Our task is how we consciously foster these relations in a manner that allows our revolution to pursue a progressive economic growth path that is capable of responding to the needs of the workers and the poor of our country. The question is not so much what Brics can do for us, but how to engage on this terrain robustly, in a manner that advances the objectives of our national democratic revolution.
The SACP is of the view that it is time now that all progressive forces honestly and frankly reflect on these potential opportunities to liberate our economy from a Euro-driven capitalist interest, towards a developmental oriented economy more closely linked to economies of the South.
The emergence of China as a global economic player, despite its contradictory relationship with the US economy, is a terrain upon which we can seek to pursue an alternative international economic strategy that could allow us to consolidate and develop an alternative economic trajectory for the NDR. It is a site upon which we can seek to end our colonial type dependence to North America and the West.
Could it be that liberal and new tendency elements that are resisting South Africa's closer relations with the Brics wittingly and unwittingly have to do with liberals' attachment to the West and a BEE project entirely dependent on western imperialist sponsorhip?
Party-to-Party relations and a progressive Brics agenda
In the light of the above, what are the tasks of the SACP and the working class on this critical international site of struggle? The SACP's medium term vision identifies the international sphere as one site of struggle in which we have to build working class hegemony and power.
The first task is ensure that the SACP actively engages with and analyse the politics of Brics. In engaging with the Brics reality, it is important that we consistently adopt a revolutionary rather than a liberal or tenderpreneurial approach to our international relations, in order to advance the agenda of the workers and the poor of our country. A revolutionary approach must be informed by the fact that Brics provides a huge opportunity, in the medium to longer term, to break our economic and trade dependence on western imperialism, and seek to advance mutually beneficial international economic relations for the sake of consolidating our national democratic revolution.
One political feature about Brics is the role that communist parties have played both in the past and present in the politics of these countries. This places the SACP in a rather unique position to engage the Brics countries from a much more informed left critical position, and in the interests of the workers and the poor of our country.
In Russia, the core of the former socialist Soviet Union, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation still remains the single largest party outside of the ruling party. This is an important platform through which we can seek to engage with the Brics' terrain. In China, the Communist Party of China, with which we have very close relations, is the ruling party. In Brazil, the Communist Party of Brazil, is an ally of the ruling PT, and also participates in the current Brazilian government.
Over the past more than 60 years of India's independence the two communist parties, notably the Communist Party of India (Marxist), have been in and out of state governments in that country, including participation in coalitions governments nationally.
The above calls for, amongst other things, deepening our communist fraternal ties in the Brics countries, as part of engaging these realities in the interests of developing a new growth path in our country, with and for workers and the poor.
The SACP, as part of the ruling alliance and not an oppositioinist force, has a uniquely important role in consolidating and deepening South Africa's role in Brics, as part of our overall strategic objective to consolidate the national democratic revolution.
On what major principal terrain should we seek to consolidate the Brics relationship? It is by, amongst other thing, focusing on developing the domestic manufacturing and productive capacity of our economy, as a principal platform upon which to transform the semi-colonial character of our economy and create jobs.
Our online edition will in future carry articles on Brics as part of taking forward this important debate. We urge all our structures to debate this matter.
Asikhulume!!