Red Eye on Two Movies: Expose Mandela; Exploitation in the Sugar Fields

PLP Saturday night movie events at Roxbury Community College have developed from social events to serious base-building, with friends joining with us to learn and discuss our ideas, based on the films. The discussions have been very sharp and informative: Everyone who came with us knows we fight for communism, and the movies we chose open up real discussion. Multiracial and multigenerational groups of 20 to 30 have attended.
The February movie was John Pilger’s “Apartheid Did Not Die,” a documentary of post-apartheid South Africa that shows how Mandela and his successors in the black-majority government and African National Congress (ANC) have strangled the working class under the tight grip of rampant capitalism. The film was selected to critically analyze Nelson Mandela and his political work with a “red eye.” The participants included students, professors, current and retired workers from South America, Haiti, U.S., Africa and the Middle East.
The documentary shows how Mandela joined forces with President F. W. de Klerk claiming to “abolish apartheid” and establish multiracial elections in 1994, which has left the black majority in extreme poverty and still under brutal capitalism and segregation. In this compromised state, Mandela became President. He and the ANC had become the new faces of capitalism. Continuing dire poverty and misery demands communist revolution as the only real alternative.
The discussion was both sharp and informative. When asked:  “How did Mandela serve the ruling class and capitalists by cooperating with de Klerk?” several people pointed out the contradiction that Mandela is portrayed by the Western ruling class and media as a hero to his people and an inspiration to all. All agreed that this documentary exposed a very different view of Mandela. Pilger’s interviews and film clips of miners, and the dangerous and desperate conditions under which they live, really moved people to anger when contrasted with the excessive wealth of the South African ruling class portrayed in the film.
It becomes apparent from the documentary that, like many others who start out opposing colonial capitalist rulers, Mandela sold out to them in the end, striking a deal with de Klerk to cooperate and collaborate with the ruling class. A belief in nationalism often leads to new faces on capitalism, but only a working-class revolution can end it.
Our March movie,  “The Price of Sugar,” shows the organizing efforts of immigrant sugar cane cutters from Haiti against horrific working and living conditions in the Dominican Republic. The film reveals the crimes of the sugar capitalist Viccini family and the role of the Dominican and U.S. governments in perpetuating this racist exploitation.  
In the documentary, we see the workers are under armed guard and not allowed to leave the plantation. They make 90¢ a day — but only in vouchers for the high-priced company store. They come to the Dominican Republic to hope for a better life, but their lives are like those of the first African slaves who were used in the Americas to cut sugar cane. Recently, the Dominican Constitutional Court ruled to strip citizenship from several generations of Dominicans of Haitian descent, including many who had come to cut cane and hope for a better life.
The discussion helped many understand the limits of reform movements. Without a class analysis, without communist revolution, the same system continues in power. Even if some workers burned down the plantations, the sugar capitalists still have their government and military to oppress the workers. One important point was how racism justifies cheap labor. Why do these subhuman conditions exist under capitalism? They exist to maximize bosses’ profits from the labor of some workers while at the same time driving down the wages of all workers.
Both movies helped reach out to more people politically and spread the understanding that capitalism is a brutal system, which must be eliminated. Some joined us in NYC for May Day.