Dialogue : A parallel is often drawn with South Africa . Yet, in South Africa, wasn’t it fear of a popular uprising, fear of a violent end to the apartheid regime that pushed the UN and largely the USA to demand reforms to save the essential, i.e. South African capitalism ? There are many South African activists who believe that the Kempton Park negotiations actually saved the economic power of the whites by putting some blacks in power. What is your view on this ?
Haidar Eid : I tend to agree with this analysis and I think that in South Africa we have witnessed an end to political Apartheid, but, unfortunately, we have not witnessed yet the end of economic Apartheid. I believe it is the task of conscious progressive powers in South Africa now to uphold the original principles defended by the Freedom Charter. Unfortunately, the struggle of the Black masses of South Africa had definitely been hijacked by Black fat cats. But, the agenda now is purely social. Whereas as the South African struggle has managed to bring Apartheid South Africa to an end, it has failed to come up with a new agenda that guarantees the socio-economic rights of the majority of Black masses of South Africa . In other words, yes South Africa has fallen within the trap of what Frantz Fanon calls the pitfalls of national (racial) consciousness, by prioritizing race over class.
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