part of no part

  Democratic Praxis, Manufactured Unity and the Crisis of Left Renewal Part 3 of a Critique of the Conference of the Left The Conference of the Left emerged from a legitimate recognition that South Africa faces a profound social, economic and political crisis. Widespread unemployment, deepening inequality, ecological destruction, state failure, corruption, the fragmentation of working-class organisation and the declining legitimacy of the post-apartheid political settlement all point to the urgent need for renewed forms of democratic struggle and working-class power. Yet this crisis must also be located within a broader historical and global context. The emergence of the Government of National Unity reflects not only the electoral decline of the ANC, but also the exhaustion of a political project that for decades claimed to represent the aspirations of workers, the poor and the marginalised. Faced with the erosion of its social base, the ANC was presented with a historic choice. It...