Thursday, 15 June 2006
SACP Statement on the 30th Anniversary of the 1976 Students Uprisings
On this historic occasion in which our country is celebrating the 30th anniversary of the 1976 Student Uprisings, the SACP wishes to salute those heroes and heroines, both departed and living, for their historic contribution towards the liberation of our country.
The full history and place of this uprising in our national liberation struggle still awaits to be told in full. The students and participants in the 1976 student uprisings changed the history of our country radically, and contributed enormously in changing the direction of the national democratic revolution.
The SACP also wishes to dip its banner in memory of those who perished during the 1976 uprisings, and others who were subsequently killed by the apartheid regime for their political and military activities. It is proper that we honour all the cadres of MK from this generation. It is also important to ensure that we attend to the needs of many of these combatants, some of whom today feel that they have been neglected.
The youth energies unleashed by the 1976 uprisings found their way into basically every facet of the progressive movement and indeed South African society as a whole. Many of these student heroes contributed in building the progressive trade union movement, progressive mass organisations and indeed all the formations of our liberation movement. These uprisings laid a basis for the rebuilding of a non-racial student movement, especially AZASO (later SASCO) and the Congress of South African Students (COSAS). These formations were central in the student struggles of the 1980s, as well as forming an important component of the broader national liberation struggle.
The Class of 1976 was also instrumental in rebuilding the underground structures of our organisations, especially the ANC, SACP and Umkhonto WeSizwe. Some of the members of this Class of ’76 also found their way into exile and significantly swelled the ranks of the liberation movement. They were also central in the strengthening of the activities of MK inside our country. The SACP itself benefited enormously from this generation, as many of them became not only students of Marxism-Leninism, but also tried and tested cadres of our Party, both in exile and in the underground internally. Some indeed were jailed in Robben Island.
The 1976 student uprisings marked a second wave of mass action against the apartheid regime since the banning of the ANC in 1960. These student uprisings built upon another milestone in the mass struggles against apartheid, the 1973 workers’ strikes in Durban. These two events laid a basis for the revival of internal mass resistance against apartheid, culminating in the effective rebuilding of a progressive trade union movement in the 1970s and the formation of the United Democratic Front in 1983. These two streams of the people’s struggles found political expression in the UDF/COSATU alliance of the 1980s and the growing popularity of the ANC as undisputed leader of the national liberation struggle in our country.
Our Youth Must Speak Out …
On this 30th anniversary of the 1976 Student Uprisings, the SACP also wishes to salute all our progressive youth formations for carrying high the banner of the Class of 1976 – the ANC Youth League, the Young Communist League, SASCO, COSAS, Young Christian Students, and many other progressive youth formations in our country. Some of your detractors will try and belittle your role and contribution in maintaining a progressive youth organisation in our country. Like the youth of 1976 you must stand tall and be proud of the tradition and struggles you have continued to safeguard and advance.
Like the Class of ’76 you must speak out on matters that concern the youth. This is your future, and you must not keep quiet. Youth must speak out about unemployment, joblessness, retrenchments and casualisation as it is the youth that is most affected by these scourges in our society.
The youth must speak out about women’s rights, especially young women’s rights, as they are the most affected by the many ills still facing our society. It is young women who are victims of retrenchments and casualisation. It is young women who are victims of abuse and are the most vulnerable to the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
Our youth must speak out and be vigilant about instances where our state organs are being abused. Failure to speak out on these matters will compromise our democracy and it is the future of the youth that is at stake, as it will have inherited a deformed democracy. This would be a great disservice to the Class of ’76 which, thirty years ago, sacrificed its lives and youth to ensure that South Africa becomes a democracy.
The youth must speak about Black Economic Empowerment that benefits only a few. BEE cannot be truly broad-based unless it addresses the question of creating economic opportunities for as many youth as possible. Youth must speak out on youth co-operatives, on youth SME’s and for opportunities for sustainable livelihoods for young people.
Our youth and their formations must speak out against a South African media that is increasingly expressing and articulating the (class) interests of both the black and the white middle classes and capitalists. Their pre-occupation with what they call the ‘succession debate’ in our movement has more to do with attempts by middle classes and the rich to create a South Africa that caters primarily for their interests. We must defeat this agenda! We must defeat this new consensus within the rich (black and white) to hoodwink us that all is well with our economy, when we have 40% unemployment and half the population living in poverty.
In the true spirit of the 1976 generation, the youth must speak out when things go wrong in our organisations. If there are things that need to be sorted out in our organisations and the youth keeps quiet, the youth will inherit deformed organisations.
As the SACP we also say the youth must speak out against capitalism! The biggest obstacle to youth empowerment, jobs and livelihoods is the capitalist system. It is a system that is rotten to the core, because it empowers a few at the expense of the majority. Our youth are the children of domestic workers, of farmworkers, of factory workers of mine workers, and of the unemployed. It is a youth that knows and experiences poverty and lack of opportunities, and should therefore speak as such, as ‘Izingane zabawashi’ (Children of washer women).
In short the youth must speak without fear or favour, as the 1976 youth spoke as such!
But the youth must also act!
Like the class of ’76, it did not only speak out, but it acted. Our youth must act in a disciplined, but fearless manner. The only way to act in a disciplined manner is by joining progressive youth organisations – the ANC YL, the YCL, student formations and other progressive youth organisations. The youth must make sure that these organisations are strong and are their true voice for consolidating the national democratic revolution.
But the youth must also swell the ranks of the ANC, the SACP and young workers to join COSATU. A critical challenge in this regard is to ensure that the ANC- our prime political organ for transforming society - continues to maintain its bias towards the working class. This will benefit the youth enormously as the overwhelming majority of our youth come from the ranks of the working class. Your future can only be secured by an ANC that maintains and deepens its working class bias.
The primary means through which we should ensure working class bias in all our formations, is by building organisations that are mass-based and campaigning. The SACP wishes to invite the youth to support the SACP-led campaigns on making the banks to serve the people, for a once-off amnesty for all those listed in the faceless Credit Bureaux, for building a strong co-operative movement and for the speeding up of transfer of productive land to the overwhelming majority of our people!
The youth must also ensure that we build a state that is biased towards the working class. We live in a capitalist society, and there is intense contestation under way about the kind of state we should be building. There is intense pressure on the state by the rich who want a state that primarily caters for the interests of the capitalists and the middle classes, both black and white. We need a developmental state that is able to address the needs of the overwhelming majority of our youth.
The 1976 generation fought and many of them died to ensure that the youth of enjoy a better life and a better life for all.
Education, Sports and Recreation
Perhaps the SACP’s main message to our youth on this 30th anniversary is that the best way we can honour the struggles of the Class of ’76 is by struggling for the doors of learning to be completely open. The SACP supports the demand of our Young Communist League for free education. Despite significant improvements and achievements in our education system under the ANC-led government, too many of our youth are still excluded from accessing educational opportunities, both at school level and at higher education level. The single major reason for this is poverty! Let us use this 30th anniversary for our youth formations to intensify the struggle for free education.
The SACP is also strongly of the view that there should be strong linkages between schools as centres of quality and accessible education, as well as schools as centres of quality sports and recreation. We are celebrating this 30th anniversary in the midst of the biggest youth spectacle in the world – The Soccer World Cup. It is the youth that is currently gripping the attention of the whole world.
Perhaps one of the major reasons why our country is not represented at this spectacle is a reflection of the decline in schools as centres of sports and recreation. Our youth formations and government need to pay particular attention to this matter.
One of the key challenges is that of widening the participation of students in sports and recreation. This involves provision of better sports and recreational facilities in schools and institutions of higher education.
But another matter that has been neglected in this regard is that of formally introducing what are known as traditional or township games into our schools (eg. Shumpu, amagende (diketo), ingqathu, ‘three-tin’, etc). Most of these games also teach us other skills that enhance educational performance as well as skills for many other sports. We should congratulate the Gauteng Government for undertaking this initiative, but it should be taken by national government, so that we can develop these games and produce our own national competitions and national champions. This will certainly broaden participation by our youth in a wider range of sports and recreational activities, and this will contribute towards raising the levels of our games in all sport codes.
Let us honour the 1976 generation through free education and sports and recreation for all!
The SACP will be participating in the rallies around the country to commemorate the 30th anniversary of June 16. To this effect the SACP General Secretary will address the African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) National rally in Durban.
The details of this event and his address are as follows:
Date : Friday, 16 June 2006
Venue : ABSA Stadium, Durban
Time ; 10h00
The media is invited to cover this historic address
Contact:
Malesela Maleka
Tel: 011 339 3621
Fax: 011 339 4244
Mobile: 082 226 1802
Email: malesela@sacp.org.za