Politics and Movements Need Each Other - Whether they like it or not

www.rabble.ca by Rici Lake January 28, 2003

History is scattered with the rubble of failed movements for social change. If these mistakes are to be avoided in the future, we must study and learn from these past failures.

With this introduction, Brazilian political columnist Marcio Moreira Alves inaugurated a “round table of controversy” on the question of how to cope with the gaps and tensions between social movements, political parties and political institutions on the third day of the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil.

While the panellists agreed on several points, notably the importance of maintaining independent social movements, the three-hour debate did not achieve any deep consensus. What remains clear, though, is that the relationship between party politics and movement politics will remain a difficult one.

Louise Beaudoin, Quebec’s Minister of International Affairs, called for a reaffirmation of the role of party politics. “Politics is a place where we can return to building society,” she said. It is the role of the nation-state to provide basic services, distribute wealth, and “put an end to the global apartheid that separates North and South.” But, she said, the role of social movements is also important: “social democratic parties that forget [about social movements] have lost power.”

Willy Madisha, representing the Confederation of South African Trade Unions, offered a critical analysis of the South African experience after eight years of African National Congress (ANC) rule. While the ANC still enjoys much popular support — Madisha estinated that two-thirds of South African electors would vote for the ANC — there is growing dissatisfaction, in large part because of the failure of the ANC either to deal with the country’s dramatic income disparity or to radically restructure government institutions, but also because the ANC in government is no longer the dynamic social movement of opposition.

The transition was hampered from the beginning by the threat of capital flight, Madisha said, a threat which will condition the actions of any progressive government. This limited the ANC`s flexibility, particularly in the economic arena. South Africa remains a relatively wealthy country, but also remains a deeply divided country, second only to Brazil in income disparity.

However, he added, serious mistakes were made by the ANC and South African civil society. In particular, he said, rather than try to maintain active social movements, most of the progressive leadership moved into state roles, with better pay and more access to power, and many social movements simply put their faith into the newly-elected state rather than continue their activities.

This has left a vacuum in the political environment, he said, warning that “we must not sacrifice social movements to build the state.” This is the responsibility of both the progressive governments and the movements themselves: “social movements cannot just aim at getting progressive governments into power,” while the elected progressive governments must themselves work to “open a space for action by mass movements.”

The democratic transition did not instantly change the nature of the South African government, Madisha pointed out. “We inherited a repressive state and its institutions... and we did not move fast enough to reform the state to ensure representation.”

Jose Genoino, president of the Brazilian Workers Party (PT, Partido do Trabalhadores), distinguished between the social movements which helped build the PT, the political party itself, and the new federal government headed by the PT’s Lula da Silva. “The PT is a left-wing party,” he said, but the government of Lula is “more inclusive.” So it is important that the relationship between the government and the party be clear.

Genoino rejected both the “traditional” models: a “Stalinist” party-state and a party which is simply “an annex of the government.” But the third option — that the party be “the opposition” — is also difficult.

For both Genoino and Madisha, there is a necessary if uneasy alliance between social movements and left-wing political parties. “The duty of the social movements is to support progressive action,” said Mahadi, while “the duty of the government is to engage with the social movement... a left-wing government must see social movements as part of the parcel of team players.”

According to Genoino, the radical transformation of Brazil will depend on two simultaneous projects: the reform of the state to make it democratic and participatory, and the transformation of society through political action by “independent and autonomous social movements.” The PT as a political party and the social movements are “friends of the same process.”

Rici Lake is a Canadian activist currently living in Perú where he works for an international NGO. Watch for more rabble in Brazil — voices from Porto Alegre, this week on rabble.