I joined the party ten years ago at age of twenty. There was an international meeting of ICWP comrades from around the world. They were visiting South Africa. I was invited to a series of meetings by a now comrade and a neighbour.
When I was first introduced to the party and communism, I was sceptical and mistrusting. I did not trust the comrades because of the racism I was carrying with me, because of growing up in a nationalistic political environment.
My father was an African National Congress (ANC) member who was also involved in Pan-Africanism. I was introduced to ANC politics at an early age. I was sent to join the ANC youth league local branch. The first time I voted, I voted for the ANC.
My father used to joke that if anyone votes for another party in his house they will have to move out. In retrospect I do not think he was joking. Therefore, I grew up believing that capitalism is bad. And capitalism in my understanding just meant a white person, especially one that seemed to have money.
When I enrolled at university, I thought the ANC was not radical enough for my enthusiasm. I quickly joined the Black Embo Movement, which was a native students’ Pan-African movement. They were anti-capitalism according to their rhetoric and they seemed militant in their language. And I joined as a result.
They had a very dangerous ideology, even though I did not understand it at that time. It was a racist ideology which portrayed every white person, young and old, as evil, quite literally. Every wrongdoing in the world was attributed to white people as a race regardless of class.
Therefore, my understanding of capitalism was limited to that racist outlook. It was not until I attended ICWP meetings, observing and listening to comrades from Mexico, the US, and El Salvador, that my mind started opening. I started seeing the limitations and dangers of the ideology I previously embraced.
Particularly I saw that exploitation of workers is a world-wide phenomenon. It does not only affect native South Africans or Africans but every working-class person. The sufferings in SA and Africa are not unique to the continent. Rather, they result from capitalism world-wide.
The comrades made me realise that just because I have the same race and come from the same country with Ramaphosa does not mean that he is not a class enemy. The killings of mine workers in Marikana made that very clear as well. That white or Black capitalists are all the same as they all exploit and benefit from the system that is brutal and causes crisis after crisis. A system that causes wars, poverty, and starvation.
Having understood capitalism for what it is, today I am a communist organiser, and a leader. ICWP equipped me with communist leadership. I was not expected to have unattainable characteristics to be a leader. Commitment, regular distribution of Red Flag, and recruiting friends is part of leadership.
Today, my friends are comrades. They see the ideological struggle. They see capitalism for what it is, a system of exploitation that uses racism to divide us as the working-class. Tens of young comrades are joining our cells and collectives. Attending meetings and organising communist and dialectics workshops has helped us understand our party’s communist line.
We learn everyday as communists. We listen to the masses and their challenges to better understand mass recruitment. High school students are joining our party and organising other students to distribute the Red Flag. Joining the party allows us to see that we can change the world and bring about communist revolution.
Capitalism is a system which shapes society to produce for capitalists’ profit, not for the necessities of humans, the masses. When the comrades made that clear in the meeting that is when that shift occurred inside me. I did not join on the spot. But doubts and questions started inside me, questioning the ideology I believed.
It was through constant struggle with my neighbour and a series of political discussions and reading the Red Flag that I ended up embracing communism and rejecting nationalism, which divides us. It pits the masses against each other instead of uniting and fighting their class enemies.
Ever since then I have been a communist dedicated in eradicating capitalism and its dangerous ideology in whatever form it manifests itself.
Forward with Communism, forward!
Forward with ICWP, forward!
Pamphlet: To End Racism, Mobilize Masses for Communism here
More on nationalism here