Keyword: National Democratic Revolution

2014: The Year of 'Radical Transformation'?

Picture: Privatemusings/Wikipedia Dale T. McKinley - Breaking news! In case you missed it, 2014 was the first full year of South Africa’s ‘radical second phase’ of the National Democratic Revolution (NDR). Apparently, we are now well into a nation-wide process of ‘radical transformation’ that is definitively putting the country on a ‘new growth and development path’. For a moment at least, forget about the return of rolling blackouts, the record-breaking wealth and conspicuous consumption of the...

Is the NDR Really a Formula for Radical Change?

Picture: COSATU Secretary General Zwelizima Vavi, President Jacob Zuma and COSATU President Sdumo Dlamini courtesy GovernmentZA/flickr Steven Friedman - Why is an idea, which featured in Marxist debates decades ago now thrown about by all sides in mainstream public debates? Why is it used by both sides in the dispute wracking Cosatu? Because it touches on a core issue facing our society. The idea - or slogan - is ‘national democratic revolution’ (NDR). Both those who supported Numsa’s removal from Cosatu and Numsa itself say they support the NDR - Numsa complains it is ‘not on track’ while its opponents say...

Numsa's United Front: Forward to the Past?

Picture: Numsa Jane Duncan - The country’s largest trade union federation, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), has expelled the National Union of Metalworkers’ of South Africa (Numsa), for not supporting the African National Congress (ANC). Anyone in South Africa who doesn’t know this news must have been living under a rock for the past week. Numsa has been exploring political alternatives for the past year. In its December 2013 congress, it decided to launch a United Front to...