The SACP, its Central Committee and entire membership, brings warm and revolutionary congratulations to the leadership and membership of the NUM for 20 years of glorious struggle and massive contribution to the national liberation struggle, mineworker’s struggles and the struggle for socialism in our country. We salute the NUM particularly for its achievement in restoring the dignity of black mineworkers in our country. Twenty years ago black mineworkers were treated with indignity and disrespect, even by the majority of our own people, as doing the most degrading and dangerous work. But today, not only is the NUM the largest COSATU affiliate, it is also a respected union with mineworkers being amongst the foremost and respect cadres of our revolution.
The SACP is proud to be part of this celebration. South African communists have a long association with the struggles and organization of mineworkers in our country, particularly African mineworkers. On this occasion we celebrate and honour the memory of JB Marks – the late national chairperson of the SACP – who organized mineworkers and led the historic 1946 African mineworkers strike. The deepening of relations between the NUM and the SACP is a continuation of this long relationship with mineworkers. It is for this reason that we today pledge our solidarity and deepening of relations with the NUM, and vow to be with you in the trenches as we continue to tackle the transformation of the mining industry and decent working conditions and salaries for mineworkers.
Ours is a struggle to deepen and consolidate a working class led national democratic revolution and lay the foundation for the eventual transition to socialism. Ours is a struggle driven by a strong belief that capitalism is no solution to the problems facing South Africa and the world today. It is only a transition to socialism that result in the total liberation and full social emancipation of the majority of our people from the evils of the apartheid legacy, gender inequalities, class exploitation and racial inequalities. Without an organized working class formation like the NUM being part of the revolutionary forces at the head of the transformation effort, our NDR and the struggle for socialism will be weakened.
Through our longstanding relationship, perhaps a proper slogan that should continue to guide our relationship should be that a strong SACP with a weak NUM is a weak SACP. Just as a strong NUM, with a weak SACP, is a weak NUM!
Over the last twenty years the NUM has not only fought against the superexploitation of black mineworkers, but has also fought the violence and brutality of employers and the apartheid regime. The NUM has fought courageously to uplift the condition of the mineworkers in our country, restoring their dignity as human beings and producers of wealth. Amongst other things the NUM has fought for better wages and working conditions, decent living conditions, improving the health and safety of workers, joining the HIV/AIDS battle. Of late the NUM has been instrumental in the drafting and adoption of the mining charter, aimed at the total transformation of the mining industry and setting it on a course of being seen as a sunrise, rather than a sunset industry.
Today we can truly say the NUM has proven itself to be a reliable and dependable combatant in all working class battles over the last two cadres. The NUM has also been a dependable and trustworthy component of the revolutionary forces in our country. It is for this reason that you proudly marched alongside the ANC, SACP, COSATU and other progressive forces, as part of the victorious forces in April 1994! It is also for this reason that the anti-working class forces have targeted your union as one of those whose leadership must be demonized through the media. Those of our detractors whether inside or outside of our ranks engaging in such attempts to weaken the NUM shall be defeated in the same way that we defeated the violent attacks on the NUM in 1987 as well as defeating all attempts by the apartheid regime and employers to liquidate the NUM. The SACP will fight alongside you to defeat this liquidationist tendency, in whatever form or guise it comes. We will stand by you!
We also take this opportunity to congratulate the NUM for launching a paper to be distributed to all your members on the importance of fighting the HIV/AIDS scourge. This shows that the NUM is a union that carries about its members. Contrary to our detractors who say the progressive trade union movement does not know what it is doing, this shows that it is those detractors who are so distant from the everyday struggles of the working class, that they do not know what is happening. Congratulations for refusing to be a gumboots and helmet union, but a union concerned about the totality of the living conditions of its members and the working class as a whole.
The struggle to eradicate poverty – the only course to unite the alliance and deepen the national democratic revolution!
Since 1994 we have indeed, led by the ANC government, achieved a lot on the socio-economic and labour market fronts. These are the achievements we need to build upon. However the reality is that despite these advances class inequalities are widening in our country. That between 1995 – 2000, according to Stats South Africa, the average income of African households have declined by 19% and those of white households have increased by 15%, shows the extent of inequalities still afflicting our society.
Your 20th anniversary also takes place in the midst of growing US-led imperialist aggression and arrogance. In fact it is not Iraq that possesses weapons of mass destruction, but the George W Bush administration is the biggest weapon of mass destruction in the world today. This calls for deepening of international working class solidarity.
The restructuring of the global and domestic economy is leading to massive job losses, intensified attacks on the working class through rising management unilateralism, casualisation and outsourcing. This is leading to worsening poverty indicators.
Of late we are seeing adventurist right-wing bombings and the petulance of the IFP which seems to be failing to rise above its narrow ethnic and provincialistic interests. All these developments call for maximum unity of all progressive forces, under the leadership of a united Alliance.
Yet in the midst of these challenges requiring unity, we see the emergence of sectarian attacks emanating from the ranks of our own liberation movement. The latest manifestation of these sectarian and factionalising tendency is the charge against working class and socialist forces in our country as representing the so-called “ultra left tendency”. We might as well ask, why in the midst of all these challenges would sections of our movement choose to attack the forces for socialism in our country? We must characterize this sectarianism for what it is. It is a dangerous three-headed beast – if any of the papers seeking to explain this are anything to go by – which is anti-communist (seeking a total capitulation to capitalism), anti-working class, and seeking to divide the Alliance. We must expose this agenda for what it is and it is such an agenda that must be defeated not the forces of socialism.
As the SACP we repeat our appeal to the delegates to the 51st ANC Conference not to be diverted by these developments. Their focus should be on dealing with the real enemy – poverty!
It is our view as the SACP that 4 critical challenges facing our country and the working class in particular are the following:
Happy 20th anniversary and many more 20 years’!
Delivered by:
SACP General Secretary Blade Nzimande
For further details please contact:
Mazibuko K. Jara
Cell: 083 651 0271