Cde President Willie Madisha
Cde General Secretary, Thulas Nxesi
National Office Bearers of SADTU
Leadership of Alliance
International guests
Cde Delegates
The SACP wishes to take this opportunity to thank SADTU for inviting the SACP to address and participate at this important gathering. Let me also congratulate SADTU for adopting what is an extremely timely and relevant theme for this Congress, "People's Education for Working Class Power". This is in essence a call to go back to the basics of the national democratic programme. At the same time it is a strategic slogan taking us into the future, and with a huge potential to drive progressive educational transformation in our country.
It would therefore be important that in your debates, you try and begin to elaborate the theory behind this slogan, as well as some of the programmatic challenges that emanates from such a strategic orientation. I will however return to these matters lately.
Congratulations to your General Secretary and SADTU
Since your last Congress, your General Secretary, Cde Thulas Nxesi, was, in 2004 elected President of Education International. The SACP wishes to take this opportunity to warmly congratulate Cde Nxesi for this recognition of his qualities as a leader of international stature. You are now a real THISHOMKHULU, for the whole world not just South Africa. I should also congratulate SADTU in this regard, because it is now known worldwide in teacher circles, and for having produced such a leader. We are also proud that Cde Senzeni Zokwana, President of NUM is also President of the International Chemical, Energy and Mining workers, and the General Secretary of SATAWU, Cde Randall Howard is President of the international transport workers. This goes to show what South African workers are made of, and we should treasure these comrades and the organisations that produced them.
The context within which your Congress is taking place
Before addressing matters related to your theme it is important to contextualise the period within which your Congress is taking place. Let me start by quoting part of what the SACP said in addressing your fifth Congress in Durban.
"Your Congress also takes place in the midst of what appears to be a concerted offensive against some of the leading working class formations, particularly some of the bigger unions of COSATU. There seems to be a concerted attack being directed at COSATU's biggest unions - SADTU, NUM, SATAWU and NEHAWU. The aim of this offensive is to weaken some of our prime worker formations, thereby weakening COSATU and ultimately the working class struggle as a whole.
"Your Congress thus comes at a time when there is an even more pressing imperative for the working class and all its formations to close ranks and unite.
But it is not enough to just close ranks, we need also to keep the working class mobilised and help it to strengthen itself politically, ideologically and organisationally in order to ensure that it is capable of stamping its authority and leadership over the national democratic revolution. Without a strong and politically conscious working class, our revolution will flounder. We need to remind ourselves that the historic mission of South Africa's working class is that of leading the national democratic revolution to its logical conclusion, the building of a socialist South Africa.
"Of serious concern as well is the role of some of the media, in particular the City Press, in this offensive. It is completely unacceptable for the City Press to simply accept and print a set of allegations sent to it by "unknown" people. Is this how the media should operate? Does this mean that any individual can anonymously write something about public figures, and then have this published by the media? The City Press needs to be careful that it does take us down the route of gutter and dangerous journalism. If they print because they know such allegations come from "credible sources" then it means that they either know who these sources are and possibly what their intentions are or else they are willingly being used to pursue these sources' agendas. We are neither afraid of nor against critical engagement by the media, but there are decent rules that need to be followed".
Four years later these words ring as true, and this offensive has not stopped, instead it has now extended to COSATU itself. It is for this reason that all our unions and the federation must be protected at all costs from attempts to smear and slander its leaders, as is currently happening. The only objective of these attacks is to divide and weaken COSATU and its affiliates, as part of securing South Africa as a haven for private capital accumulation. We must condemn these tendencies in the strongest possible terms as a way of protecting our progressive unions. The SACP stands for the unity of the progressive trade union movement and our Alliance as a whole. As we have proven over the last 85 years we shall not be found wanting in this regard.
But why is this happening? Despite the many advances made by our democratic government and the working class over the last 12 years, the SACP is of the view that there has now emerged a new class consensus amongst the elite, forged around pursuing a path of restoration of capitalist profitability and that a capitalist market economy is the only route to go in our country. This is not going unchallenged, as illustrated by, amongst other things, the growing number and militancy of working class struggles over the last two years.
At the heart of these class struggles is the question of whether the national democratic revolution should have a capitalist character or a socialist orientation. In our view as the SACP an NDR that is capitalist oriented ceases to be an NDR, as it is hopelessly incapable of addressing the complex challenge of underdevelopment and widening poverty in our society. In fact the past twelve years are a proof of the very serious failure by the capitalist market to address even the minimum of these challenges.
All these point to the fact that the capitalist class in particular is aggressively seeking to assert itself as the leading motive force in our democratic revolution. Part of this offensive and the maintenance of the elite class consensus, is also to contest our own organisations, both ideologically and through resources. Whilst unions are weapons for workers to defend and advance their workplace struggles, for the capitalist class, unions are a big business. They are, from the standpoint of the capitalist class, a source of the multi-billion rand workers' retirement funds, insurance policies of different types and with millions of rands for procurement of a variety of services and products.
Part of the contestation for the soul of the progressive trade union is that of compromising worker leaders by turning them into instruments for capital accumulation inside the unions and the problem of kick-backs to secure union 'business'. This is the phenomenon of business unionism that must be defeated at all costs. The companion to business unionism is that of seeking to blunt the militancy of the unions, seeking to capture leadership positions by people engaged in business unionism.
The only way to deepen and defend the proletarian character of the progressive trade union movement is to ensure that first of all we guard and protect the independence of the trade union movement. By proletarian, I do not mean it in the same sense as those who have been attacking public sector workers, as not being truly proletarian. I mean it in the sense of defending the independence and militant traditions of COSATU and its affiliates of which public sector workers are an important part, as well as its commitment to a socialist future. There is no contradiction between independence and being part of the alliance, though this is not without its own tensions. What is critical for the working class is precisely to maintain its independent character and organs as the only basis for meaningfully participating in alliances to advance its own interests.
We also have to fight against all tendencies to turn our unions into sweetheart unions, that meekly succumb and even collaborate with capital and elements within the state which would like to see tame unions.
I would also be amiss if I also do not raise a related problematic phenomenon found in public sector unions. There is a creeping tendency of wanting to control the structures of the union in order to secure a path for promotion into senior positions in government, especially education advisors (abahloli). Sometimes in a region of SADTU there are intense struggles and factions, not around legitimate ideological debates or programmatic differences, but about different links to sections of government bureaucracy in order to secure promotions for this or that faction. This Congress has a responsibility to discuss these problems and find ways of dealing with them, otherwise our unions will be reduced to nothing more than stepping stones for personal career advancement.
What does all this mean? Our theory, strategy and tactics tell us that the leading motive force of the national democratic revolution is the working class, in alliance with the landless urban and rural masses. However, there is sometimes a vast difference between our theory, strategy and tactics and the actual reality on the ground. What is the actual reality on the ground?
The reality is that much as South Africa's working class remains fairly strong and an important layer of South African society, leadership over the national democratic revolution is intensely contested. On the one hand is the white capitalist class, using its resources to sponsor a black section of the capitalist class and seeking to influence the state and some our cadres in the public sector, wants to secure South Africa as a capitalist country by strengthening the accumulation regime underway in our country.
On the other hand is the working class and mass of the poor of our people, waging an immediate struggle for jobs, a living wage, eking a living on the fringes of the mainstream capitalist economy and generally fighting against poverty.
The working class therefore has a duty to solidify its formations, wage militant struggles on the ground, in order to assert the authority of the working class as the leading motive force of our revolution. Being a motive force does not come on a plate, but has to be won on the ground through intensified working class struggles.
The SACP has complete confidence in the capacity of SADTU to deal with these problems and challenges.
The working class and state power in South Africa's transition to democracy
In further contextualising your Congress and the challenges facing the working class, I would like to briefly share with you some of the key arguments contained in the SACP's Discussion Document on state power. This document seeks to honestly and frankly analyse the kind of state we have built in order to properly identify the challenges and tasks of the working class in the short to medium term.
The point of departure of the document is that the South African revolution has always been seeking to address three interrelated contradictions, the class, national and gender contradictions. However the SACP has always argued that the fundamental contradiction is the class contradiction, as it is the key one that helps to explain the underlying dynamics of South African society. The national contradiction - national oppression and its legacy - remains the dominant contradiction, dominating virtually all facets of our society. Of course the gender contradiction remains the most pervasive in South African society.
The main argument in this part of the document is that from the 1960s through to the 1980s, both the ANC and the SACP, and of course the progressive trade union movement had a shared strategic vision of the kind of society we wanted to build in South Africa. This shared vision and assumption is captured most vividly in an ANC NEC document produced in 1979 called the 'Green Book'. Its main conclusion was thus
"It should be emphasised that no member of the Commission had any doubts about the ultimate need to continue our revolution towards a socialist order; the issue was posed only in relation to the tactical considerations of the present stage of our struggle".
This is not meant to prove that the ANC was a socialist organisation, but to show that there was a common shared perspective about the direction of our revolution. The Document argues that it is the rupture in this commonly shared perspective that has significantly shaped the direction of our transition over the last 12 years. There has definitely been a shift now from this shared perspective to the emergence of a dominant perspective which says that the task of our liberation movement is to manage capitalist relations.
The SACP document essentially argues that a combination of having had a negotiated transition, class struggles and the dominance of what we call the dominant hegemonic perspective in the ANC and the state (what we call 'The 1996 Class Project'), has evolved to create some key systemic features of the post 1994 state.
The document argues that there has been three different phases within this dominant state project since around 1996:
" macro-economic policy as the assumed central public sector driver of growth (1996-9), inaugurated by the adoption of GEAR in 1996
" privatisation as the key catalyser of growth (1999 -2002),
" public sector infrastructural investment to "lower the cost of doing business" - state capitalism - as the key catalyser (2002 to the present).
Some of the key pillars of this dominant project include the following:
Its first assumption is that since the end of the Cold War there is now a new global era and a growing international consensus on human rights and good governance and that South Africa enjoys a unique opportunity to benefit from these realities. However what is distinct about these assumptions is the absence of adequately grasping the persistence of imperialism, and the analytical concept of 'imperialism' is absent
The second pillar is a powerful presidential centre within the state, and a state in which the leading cadre is made up of a new political elite and (often overlapping with them) a new generation of black private sector BEE managers/capitalists. Its strategy for development is largely premised on restoration of capitalist profitability to try and address the crisis of underdevelopment
An attempt at 'modernisation' of the ANC, aiming to transform it from a mobilising mass movement into a modern 'centre-left' electoral party, as witnessed in the organisational redesign proposals that we submitted at, but subsequently rejected by, the ANC NGC in July 2005
A key component of the post-1996 state project has been a stratum of emerging black capitalists. This is based on the argument that since we are in a capitalist society we must actively foster the creation of a black section of the capitalist class as part of 'deracialisation' of South African capitalism. But this black capital is excessively compradorial (total reliance on the patronage of established white capital) and parasitic (reliance upon a symbiotic relation with the upper echelons of the state apparatus).
The document however points out that this dominant state project is in a crisis, and key amongst these are:
the inability of capitalist stabilisation and growth to resolve the deep-seated social and economic crises of unemployment, poverty and radical inequalities in our society
the ravages to the ANC's organisational capacity, unable to lead mass mobilisation and campaigns outside of election campaigns
the crises of corruption, factionalism and personal careerism inherent in trying to build a leading cadre based on capitalist values and the symbiotic relationship between the leading echelons of the state and emerging black capital
In fact the ANC's NGC gave vent to these crises in a relatively dynamic way with a wide range of different grievances coming together around the support for Cde Jacob Zuma.
The challenge facing the working class is to break with this developmental path and seek to transform the many key problematic features of the state we have built thus far.
It is within the above context that the working class needs to debate and clearly define its tasks in relation to the building of a developmental state. And it is within this framework and tasks that the question of whether the SACP contests elections in the future must be thoroughly debated.
Whilst on the matter relating to the Deputy President of the ANC, the Alliance has been seized with this matter and there is a minimum common approach on how to handle it. We have agreed that the manner in which the prosecuting authorities have dealt with this matter leaves a lot to be desired. For the SACP Cde Zuma's constitutional rights have been grossly violated, as contained, inter alia, in the Public Protector's report.
An important Alliance meeting held in August last year, reaffirmed its support for the Deputy President of the ANC, and decided that we need to go to the bottom of the matters relating to Cde JZ, including the reasons for a wide-spread perception that there is a conspiracy. The Alliance secretariat remains committed to taking forward this discussion.
People's education for working class power
To return to the challenges around the theme of your Congress, the SACP would like to argue that it is time for the working class to actively intensify the struggle for the implementation of the clauses of the Freedom Charter.
The Freedom Charter is a programme of our movement, and the working class as the leading motive force in the revolution needs to mobilise for implementation of its key clauses. If, as we are sometimes told, that it is not possible to implement some of these clauses, such an assessment needs to be done collectively rather than through technocratic, narrow governmental processes.
Perhaps, in the interests of stabilising and consolidating our transition to democracy, the working class entered into some class compromises. It is clear that the compromises that the working class might have made were exploited to pursue a capitalist trajectory of the national democratic revolution. We have to clearly and frankly make a full assessment of the last twelve years, including the question of the manner in which the Alliance is structured to deal with current challenges and the reality of state power.
Your programme on People's Education must not be a substitute, but must build upon and incorporate your previous programme of building quality public education. In fact we cannot have public quality education unless it is people's education for working class power, and, conversely, we cannot have people's education without a quality public education system.
We must also ground ourselves in our understanding of the relationship between the working class and the people. The concept 'people' is not an undifferentiated entity, but needs to be grounded in our own theories and strategic perspectives. In the past we had defined the people as the bloc of class forces that have the deepest interest and capacity to realising the objectives of the national democratic revolution.
We had further said that the most critical social layer of the people's bloc is the working class. This still remains valid. Therefore, in order to realise the objectives of the people's bloc, the working class must be at the head of this people's bloc. Whilst the working class seeks to lead society as a whole, it is only from this perspective that such leadership must be exercised, and not from the perspective of elites and their consensus.
The continued relevance of these perspectives are proved by the fact that, much as a lot of progress has been made in our education system, there remains yawning racial, gender and class inequalities.
People's education for Working Class power must in the first instance be marked by a sustained, SADTU-led campaign for doing away with infrastructural backlogs in our schools and other educational institutions. In fact the SACP has for a while now called for our public works programmes to prioritise the elimination of these backlogs. Each school must have enough classrooms, a tarred access road, proper sanitation, electricity, clean drinking water, and basic recreational facilities.
In addition our schools must be exempted from paying for basic services like water and electricity; this must be paid for by government. It is scandalous that some of our children are still learning under trees, and poor schools having to pay for basic services. People's education must include provision of basic requirements like libraries and laboratories. The struggle for people's education must be a struggle for educational institutions with all the basic facilities.
It is also time that the struggle for free and compulsory education must now be intensified at all levels. This is one of the key clauses of the Freedom Charter, and we need to be convinced why we cannot deliver on this objective.
People's education must also include a SADTU-led campaign focusing on curriculum transformation and development in line with the developmental objectives of our country. The SACP is strongly of the view that amongst other things, it is now time that we demand the teaching of historical and dialectical materialism in our schools. The working class did not struggle for political liberation only for its children to be fed with capitalist propaganda daily at school. It is a shame that much as South Africa was liberated by a movement whose strategy and tactics was informed by this philosophical outlook, only capitalist ideology is taught in our schools. The SACP is committed to work together with SADTU to achieve this objective, and teacher development must include the training of our educators to be able to teach relevant modules on historical and dialectical materialism.
It is also important that SADTU should also consider expanding its organisational base by organising educators and lecturers in the higher education sector. This sector needs serious organisational attention, and one missing link is the organisation of educators in the higher education sector. This would be an important platform for tackling the question of the transformation of higher education in our country.
Whilst the above does not constitute the totality of building people's education for working class power, the point being made is that the challenge for SADTU is to wage visible campaigns around key educational issues in order to build a momentum for a working class led transformation of education.
In closing, we wish to thank SADTU on its support for the SACP's campaigns, on the financial sector, on land and building of co-operatives. We once more use this Congress to call for your continued support as we intensify our call for a once-off amnesty for all those blacklisted in the Credit Bureaux!
We wish you a successful Congress