Trots reply to Robinson

Bruce Robinson's latest letter, as well as his article in an earlier issue, must have left everyone in total confusion regarding the debate in the Anti-Apartheid movement over the slogans to be used on the March 18th demonstration. The purpose of this letter, then, is to clarify the position of the Young Socialists and the Socialist Action League and to explain why we look this position and hold to it.

The main point of contention in the argument over the slogans to be used was over whether the word 'Black' should appear. The YS and SAL supported the slogan 'Black Majority Rule/Let the Blacks Decide' against the slogan 'Majority Rule/Let the Oppressed People Decide because the demonstration is in solidarity with the struggle presently going on in South Africa, and this is a struggle against Racism.

When the uprisings began in Soweto last year, it became the first priority of the Anti-Apartheid movement in New Zealand to give the best possible support to this struggle. In order to do this, it is necessary to know the nature of the struggle and the way it is being advanced. This was explained in an editorial in "Socialist Action", March 11, 1977.

"What is the idea that unites and inspires the Black people of Southern Africa today, especially of South Africa itself? It is the idea that Black people are human beings too. The racist oppressors are saying every day, in deed if not in word, that Blacks are not human beings. Black Africans know that if they want to win their rights as human beings, the first thing they have to do is win their rights as Black human beings. They know that they have to find their identity as Black people, and join hands as Black people, in order to win liberation. In South Africa, the driving force of the current struggle is a broad movement which the Black people themselves call the 'Black Consciousness Movement'".

Of course, this struggle brings them into direct collision with the interests of South African capitalism and European and American imperialism. It was, as Robinson rightly says, to serve these interests that the system of Apartheid was created. But that does not change the fact that it is specifically the Racist nature of the capitalist oppression that is being fought. To ignore this, as the slogan that Robinson supports does, is to seriously misrepresent the struggle.

The danger of this demand ('Majority Rule') is that it is a concession to white racism. Why? Because it bends to the idea that to have Blacks ruling themselves means bloodshed, horror, etc. - the kind of racism we see in the daily papers when they deal with 'Big Daddy' Amin, which implies that Black self-determination will always produce a 'Black Hilter'. It tries to hide the fact that majority rule in South Africa would be rule by Black people.

Robinson's assertion that the main point of contention was 'Let the Oppressed People Decide' as opposed to 'Let the Oppressed People Decide' is quite wrong. The compromise slogan proposed 'Black Majority Rule/Left the Oppressed People Decide' would have been acceptable to us. We argued against it and in favour of the 'Black Majority Rule/Let the Blacks Decide' slogan only because that version makes it even clearer that the struggle is against racism. But as the compromise slogan includes the word 'Black' it also labels the struggle as one opposing racism, and so is entirely acceptable.

The fact that the later meeting of the Overseas Students supported the slogan 'Black Majority Rule/Let the Oppressed People Decide' therefore in no way undermines our position. On the contrary, it further supports it.

To say that the slogans we support could appear to support the Bantustans policy is ridiculous—did the Blacks decide the Bantustans policy, a system of laws which forcibly uproots 'non-productive' blacks and condemns them to live at starvation standards in the overpopulated and unproductive Bantustans? Of course not—the White minority government did.

To say that we support 'Black rule not Majority rule' is absurd, when the slogan we support is 'Black Majority Rule'. This dearly distinguishes the type of rule we advocate from neo-colonialism. What neo-colonial rule is rule by the majority?

We hope that our position is clear. When we demonstrate on Friday (after having done our share of the 'hard work') it will be in solidarity with the Black people fighting Apartheid. We will be marching in support of a struggle going on—a struggle that, when it is won, will lead to Black Majority rule. And so we will be marching under the slogan 'Black Majority Rule/South Africa, let the Blacks Decide'.