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Spartacist South Africa No. 13 |
Spring 2015 |
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Defend Liv Shange!
On 27 July, Liv Shange was forced out of the country by
the Department of Home Affairs on the pretext that she applied for the wrong
visa. She was denied permanent residency on the basis of new regulations
implemented last year, with the ludicrous justification given by Home Affairs
that because Shange’s South African relative—her child!—is unable to support
her financially, she does not meet the qualifications. Shange, a member of the
Executive Committee of the Workers and Socialist Party, had been in the cross
hairs of the ANC-led Tripartite Alliance tops for some time. In June 2013, ANC
secretary-general Gwede Mantashe implied that she was behind the labour unrest
in the platinum belt during the spate of wild cat strikes following the Marikana
massacre. The following year, during the protracted five-month-long platinum
strike led by the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union, Shange was
again scapegoated by Mantashe, who absurdly accused her of trying to
“destabilise” South Africa’s economy (Mail & Guardian, 13 June
2014).
Spartacist/South Africa opposes the persecution of Liv
Shange, and urges others in the labour movement and left to take up her defence
as well. This is a blatant attempt to silence and repress a leftist activist
who has supported the mineworkers and is seen as a thorn in the side of the
ANC-led capitalist government. As we pointed out when she was first targeted,
in 2013, “Defending Shange is in the interest of the left and workers movement
as whole, which is facing increased repression from the bourgeois Tripartite
Alliance government” (see SSA No. 9, Winter 2013). We demand that she be
allowed to return to South Africa unconditionally and given full citizenship
rights.
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