A Class-Struggle, Anti-Imperialist Response to the Water Crisis

From Makanda to Joburg, millions of taps are running dry. The people’s rage is boiling, especially against useless, out-of-touch ANC elites like Gauteng premier Panyaza Lesufi, who thinks families with no running water at home must…check into a hotel!! What’s urgently needed is a collective struggle, rallying workers and communities to stand as one and force the government to provide this basic necessity of life. Clean, running water for all!

The basis for mass action is clearly there—pretty much everyone is gatvol with the government’s cruel and bungling response to this crisis. But organised protests have been scattered and divided. One week the community in Westbury blocks roads, next week it’s pickets in Midrand, and another week SAMWU members strike at Joburg Water—all with zero coordination. This makes it easy for the government to keep a lid on the anger, sending water tankers and/or police nyalas to quell each protest in isolation. It allows the elites to stoke divisions, keeping the oppressed pitted against one another in a scramble for limited resources, instead of uniting against their common enemy.

The Struggle Must Be Anti-Imperialist

To turn this around, our approach as activists needs to urgently change in some important ways. First and foremost, we must understand that the fight for water can only go forward if it is waged on a clear anti-imperialist basis.

The just hatred of ANC politicians like Lesufi, Joburg mayor Dada Morero and water minister Pemmy Majodina must be directed toward a struggle that targets both the corrupt incompetence at local government level and the neoliberal austerity of the GNU at national level. They are two sides of the same coin: Imperialist-dictated austerity strangles services and maintenance, which is seized on by corrupt local officials and criminal syndicates to loot and sabotage; then the neoliberals step in again after the system has totally collapsed, to blackmail us with privatisation. Unless we fight this vicious cycle as a whole, the water crisis will be “solved” in the same reactionary way as the Eskom crisis, on the backs of the oppressed.

But far from intervening to guide the struggle along anti-imperialist lines, the main trend of leftist intervention in the water crisis has been capitulation to openly pro-imperialist, neoliberal forces. For example, Abahlali base Freedom Park and SAFTU in Johannesburg did much of the ground work last year to unite water protesters behind the Joburg Crisis Alliance—a coalition dominated by groups like the Rivonia Circle, WaterCAN and OUTA. These are creatures of the Oppenheimers and imperialists, who see them as useful “grassroots” camouflage for advancing the parasitic interests of white monopoly capital. For instance, their speakers used the November 1st water protest to preach support for the GNU’s Operation Vulindlela privatisation drive.

For leftists to help subordinate the water protests to JCA leadership is to play right into the white rulers’ hands, paving the way to neoliberal disaster. A sharp break from this course is absolutely necessary to make any progress.

Turn to the Workers

Instead of alliances with pro-imperialist forces like JCA, to fight for a progressive resolution of the crisis we must build an alliance with the workers in water and sanitation and their unions. Many activists are skeptical about the possibility of such an alliance, and it’s not hard to see why when you look at the attitude of the current leaderships of SAMWU and other unions in the industry. They have done nothing at all to mobilise the union’s power behind the protests of the communities that are suffering, and their members are often the ones sent to shut off water connections in the townships and squatter camps.

As a result, many activists write off the unions, even refusing to support SAMWU strikes like the one at Joburg Water a few weeks ago over unpaid bonuses. This is defeatist and totally counterproductive. We must fight to overcome the division between workers and the community by showing how it runs against the basic interests of both groups. We must reach out to SAMWU members, pointing out that staying isolated from the protests only paves the way to privatisation, which will be disastrous for their own pay and working conditions.

In contrast, fighting together will put them in a stronger position to resist this and to press for the interests that they share with the masses in the communities:

• Stop the sabotage and looting. Workers at Joburg Water, Rand Water and other public entities have no interest in seeing them destroyed in order to fatten the wallets of the water tanker mafias. Working together with area committees of delegates accountable to their communities, they can put a stop to this mischief.
• Expand services. Rebuild the collapsing infrastructure and extend it to provide water and sanitation to the growing population of Gauteng.
• Expand the workforce. Recruit thousands of new workers to carry out this work, improve safety and work conditions.
• Down with imperialist austerity. Fixing the disastrous state of public services is impossible without confronting the crippling debt, which costs R1 billion a day just to service. Repudiate the debt to the imperialist bloodsuckers!

EFF: To Fight US Imperialism, Dump Lesufi & Morero!

It’s clearly impossible to carry out a struggle for these demands unless you fight to break the disastrous ties with anti-union, pro-imperialist outfits like OUTA and Rivonia Circle. You can’t fight imperialist austerity with imperialist-funded NGOs. It is equally impossible unless you fight to break the reactionary ties with the ANC-led coalition governments directly responsible for the crisis. But the EFF in Gauteng has been propping up these very governments for more than a year. When JMPD cops attack water protests or SAMWU picket lines, they are under the command of an EFF MMC, Dr. Mgcini Tshwaku.

This reactionary arrangement goes directly against the interests of EFF Ground Forces. They joined the EFF in the hopes of waging a struggle against neoliberal austerity, not having their leaders help to administer the austerity. It also completely undermines the EFF’s own defence against the attacks of the GNU and Trump. EFF militants are absolutely right to demand a break with these coalitions—something the EFF provincial leadership has now promised to do. This is a good first step, but it will not be of any use to the masses if it’s used as a bargaining chip to get more influence in the next ANC coalition, as the leadership clearly intends. Instead of cynical electoral maneuvers, we must mobilise for a real struggle against imperialist austerity. Break with the butchers of Marikana! For an anti-imperialist front to defend ourselves against US imperialism and GNU attacks!