system which would circulate in and out the water utilised. The
technicians approved the scheme.

This, in my mind, proves Fanon’s view that the workers are
capable of understanding all the so-called technical matters of their
places of work if given the opportunity, and can be very creative
and innovative if the proper conditions are created.

It is true that if care is taken to use only a language that is understood
by graduates in law and economics, you can easily prove that the
masses have to be managed from above. But if you speak the language
of every day, if you are not obsessed by the perverse desire to spread
confusion and to rid yourself of the people, then you will realise that the
masses are quick to seize every shade of meaning and to learn all the
tricks of the trade. If recourse is had to technical language, this signifies
that it has been decided to consider the masses uninitiated . . . The
business of obscuring language is a mask behind which stands out the much
greater business of plunder.®*

I shall not attempt to assess the significance and impact of the
council upon production, the workers’ attitudes, and management
as a whole. Such assessment is possible only with much more
thorough and scientific research. Such research, moreover, will
have to be done when the council has solidly established itself. In-
stead, therefore, I shall just try to sketch briefly my own im-
pressions of the working of the council at the factory.

First it seems the multiplication of committees in excess of
those demanded by the Presidential Circular makes ‘participation’
more present and dynamic. None of the workers | talked to was
completely unaware of the existence of the council and its duties.
However, not all knew who their respective representatives were.
This may of course be due to the existence of so many bodies, but
it may also be due to lack of interaction between the represen-
tatives and the workers at large.

The Circular says simply that sections in the factory will elect
representatives to the council but does not go into the mechanism
of communication. In the case of the UFI council, in fact, the
council representatives I talked to tended to assume that it was not
their duty to inform their electorate of what transpires in council
meetings. It is the Chairman, the General Manager, who calls
‘rallies’ to inform the workers of the decisions’ they ought to
know'. Thus not one did not know who the council chairman

220