Zabalaza for Socialism (ZASO) draws strength from the rising tide of global protest against right-wing populism and the increasing impoverishment of ordinary people. ZASO calls on the working class and the poor in South Africa to learn the lessons…and be inspired!

• Through mass mobilisation, Lula won the Brazilian election.
• In Serbia, the Student List party swept the authoritarian Vučić from power.
• The Cockroach Party brought tens of thousands of young people onto the streets in India to protest a corrupt education system – in the process they got rid of the education minister. They are now mobilising to prevent election corruption.
• The French working class, led by young students, has risen up against the decimation of their standard of living by the austerity policies of the government; they have been followed by parallel demonstrations in Italy.
• There were mass demonstrations in Spain for affordable housing after the eviction of an 87-year-old woman because she couldn’t pay a 230% increase in her rent.
• In Albania, huge demonstrations have taken place to stop the super-rich with links to Trump from colonising coastal areas for private gain.
• Mass mobilisations the world over have forced governments to recognise the need to finally challenge apartheid Israel, even if their challenge has been minimal.
• Even in the USA, the belly of imperialism itself, it was mass movements like Black Lives Matter and No Kings, and the widespread student protests against the genocide in Gaza that awakened thousands of activists. They included those who enabled Mamdani to win the mayoral election in New York.

This global turmoil was preceded by similar uprisings in Africa:

• In 2024, a youth rebellion in Kenya forced the government to withdraw a finance bill. It would have increased taxation for ordinary people in order to pay down the debt.
• Also in 2024, in Mozambique, mass protests after the stolen election challenged Frelimo’s continued power.
• In September 2025, a youth-led movement overthrew the president of Madagascar.

Mass action is alive and kicking

Right-wing populism and authoritarian rule have been in the ascendancy for a long time. This has allowed global powers to act with near impunity, facilitating the genocide in Gaza, the destruction in Sudan, attacks on Iran and Lebanon, and the strangling of Cuba. Meanwhile, neoliberal capitalism has closed the future of millions of youth across the world by destroying public education, jobs, housing and the environment.

But what seemed to be the unstoppable rise of the right around the world is beginning to meet resistance. Those who said that mass action is a thing of the past are choking on their words.

These protests represent important challenges to the global elites who have accumulated unprecedented wealth and power at the expense of the vast majority of the world’s population.

Here in South Africa, we need to remember the role mass action played in defeating apartheid, and start to rebuild our capacity to mobilise on a mass scale. A crucial feature of all the above protests is that they refused to be exclusive. They may have been initiated by particular sections of the community but they gained momentum and power by drawing in all those who were oppressed, exploited and driven to despair by poverty and austerity. They rejected the empty promises of the corrupt and self-enriching politicians.

Building united working-class resistance starts now!

For too long, literally thousands of poor South African communities have been protesting the dire conditions they experience. Millions are living in overcrowded shacks without access to basic services. Thousands of our children are dying of hunger. Yet hundreds of service delivery protests every year have largely been isolated, and have not enjoyed the active support of the organised working class.

ZASO believes that it is only by joining together these struggles into a coordinated force that we can bring about change.

We have a golden opportunity now to unite the struggles of ordinary people, impoverished by an economy that continues to make the rich richer and the poor poorer. Our task must be to work to bring about a unity of the working class and the poor. But it must not be a phoney platform of leaders without a base, spouting rhetoric, and claiming to represent our interests. It must be a genuine, rooted, democratic unity. Remember, nothing for us, without us! Remember, too, South Africa is not a poor country! And yet its people are drowning in poverty.

We commit ourselves to building the unified mass action of all the oppressed, and we call on all progressive organisations of community and labour to link arms. We are convinced that, working together, we can build organised and synchronised mass protest actions to end this tyranny. The working class and the poor deserve nothing less.

Contact: Siya Mama – 065 970 7079 

ZASO Website: https://zabalaza4socialism.org.za/