08 January 2002
As we did at the successful 51st National Conference of our movement? the ANC? the SACP takes this opportunity to salute this gallant movement of our people on its 91st anniversary celebration this January 8, 2003. This year?s January 8 celebrations take place in the wake of a very successful 51st conference of the ANC. At this conference the ANC enriched and adopted the many progressive policy positions as discussed at the National Policy Conference.
As has been the tradition of our movement, we always look forward to January 8 not only as an occasion to celebrate the achievements of the ANC, but also for the message for the year and a programme of action to galvanise the mass of our people towards building a better life for all. As the SACP we are always standing ready to throw ourselves fully in the implementation of the ANC?s programme as announced each January 8. We are proud that as soon as all-important Letsema campaign was announced last year, communists threw everything, including our very meager resources into supporting and sustaining the campaign. Thousands of communists visited schools, prisons, health and community centres, and participated in a myriad on volunteer activities. We need to build on this campaign as part of a general offensive against poverty, with the mass of our people and the working class at the centre taking a leading role in transforming their own conditions.
We are particularly pleased that the main theme of the 51st Conference was on ?People?s power in action?. This is a theme on which we can build on the experiences and lessons from the Letsema campaign. The all-round mobilisation of our people is becoming even more critical in achieving our objectives of job creation and poverty eradication, as well as the progressive transformation of the state and our economy. Again the SACP will play its role in ensuring that this slogan and line of march is implemented through the mobilisation of our people in all corners of our country.
The SACP itself has adopted the theme for 2003 ?Build people?s power where we live, work and study, with and for the workers and poor?. This in itself provides a unique platform through which we can harmonise the programmes of our two formations as well as that of the Alliance as a whole. This further underlines the need to mobilise all sectors of our people ? wherever they are ? in order to ensure that our transformation programme is indeed for the people, by the people and with the people.
The SACP has also decided to use the year 2003 to celebrate and honour the memory of communist martyrs, heroes and heroines. This is aimed at celebrating the role that communists have played in the struggle for national liberation and reconstruction and development of our country. Indeed this will be a double celebration, as we will not only be celebrating communists, but we will be honouring the memory of ANC cadres and leaders themselves. We will use this celebration to honour these martyrs for their role in building and being disciplined cadres of this glorious movement of ours, the ANC. It will also be a celebration of our Alliance. As we celebrate the life of Dora Tamana we will also be honouring the memory of Lilian Ngoyi. As we honour the memory of Moses Kotane, Yusuf Dadoo, JB Marks, Govan Mbeki and Chris Hani, we will also be celebrating the role of giants like Oliver Tambo. Just as today we are celebrating our movement, its leadership and cadres, the SACP has also declared the month of January, ?The Joe Slovo Month?, as 5 January marks the 8th anniversary of the passing away of this great communist, patriot and leader of the African National Congress.
Indeed we are today also celebrating the many achievements of the ANC. Today we are celebrating the restoration of the dignity of black people in our country; progress made in restoring the dignity of our women, and the many achievements and advances made by the working people of our country. Without this ANC at the head of the national liberation struggle we would today not be talking about entering the 9th year of the April 1994 democratic breakthrough. Without the ANC there would have been no defeat of the apartheid regime. Without the ANC there would have been no reconstruction and development currently underway in our country. We also wish to say today that those who think that they can roll back the tide of history ? like the reckless right-wingers trying to bomb us into the past ? they will never succeed. They can never defeat our revolution and the movement that stands at the head of this revolution!
We are however still faced with many challenges, as a movement, as a country, as a people and as an Alliance. One of the immediate challenges is that posed by the petulant, narrow and chauvinistic behaviour of the IFP through its threatened dissolution of the KZN legislature. This behaviour of the IFP should be a lesson to us all that the IFP finds it extremely difficult, despite the space provided by our democratic order, to rise above its narrow provincialistic and ethnic interests. Even when we think it is beginning to learn, but it always loses the national interest and focus, and retreats to brinkmanship to pursue interests that have very little to do about building a non-racial, non-sexist, democratic and egalitarian society. Even more disturbing is that the IFP, as it has done the past, is again seeking refuge and backing from forces that have no interest in the genuine transformation of our country and the total liberation of our people, including the IFP?s very constituency. Just like it survived through co-operation with the apartheid regime in the past, it is today seeking to roll back the political achievements in the KZN province by co-operating and seeking refuge in that political dinosaur, the DA. It is time the IFP learns that just as no amount of brinkmanship, violence and filibustering stopped our progress to democracy, and no amount of reckless behaviour today will stop our forward march to consolidate our democracy.
We also entering a year that might prove to be a very dangerous state on the global scene. Apart from the poverty and misery daily deepened by capitalist globalisation, there is now a very real danger of a US-led war against Iraq. The aim of this war is not about Iraq and weapons of mass destruction, but it is about conquering for the United States the rich oil fields of the Middle East. Unfortunately in this war a Labour Prime Minister in Britain unconditionally backs war mongering by the US. In fact Tony Blair is one of the major disappointments in the history of labour leaders in the UK. He has deserted and sold out on all the great peace struggles of the labour movement in that country and globally. All peace-loving people of the world must condemn this Bush-Blair war on Iraq. It is also time that our own movement, acting together with its Allies and all progressive forces domestically and globally, work towards the building of a peace movement that should aim to prevent this unilateral aggression of the US and its lackey, the Blair government in the UK.
Again on the domestic front, the biggest challenge we face this year, is to develop a progressive growth and development strategy whose centre piece should be job creation and arresting the current growth path that is hedding millions of jobs and constantly making the working class to be the only class being sacrificed on some vague promise of future job creation. Of course the Growth and Development Strategy will not happen only through a single summit, but the summit is an important moment to lay a basis to grow and develop our economy. This summit must differ from all others in that it must have clear targets, time frames, implementation and review mechanisms if it is to lay a basis for sustainable job creation. It is a summit that requires the Alliance to reach very firm agreements, so that we approach private capital with a united people?s voice. We expect the ANC to take decisive leadership and steps to ensure such unity of the Alliance and all progressive forces towards the growth and development summit. The lead up to the Summit is also an important moment to develop a common Alliance programme around growth and development, thus building on the Ekurhuleni Summit resolutions and programme. In other words it is an important opportunity to overcome the debilitating Alliance differences and lack of a common programme of action. It is an opportunity to decisively correct what is wrong inside our Alliance.
Our alliance ? now with several decades of experience ? must further strengthen itself by building on the understanding that there can be no effective addressing of the national question without effectively addressing the class question. In the same way these two cannot be addressed without placing the gender question at the centre of our programmes and activities. In other words it is an alliance built on the objective reality of the interconnectedness of race, class and gender in our revolution. This has not changed, and we have no choice but to strengthen the Alliance. We also need to build on the very positive climate and environment from the ANC?s 51st Conference where delegates them made it absolutely clear that not only is the Alliance still very necessary, but that we must act to correct whatever shortcomings are there. As the SACP we wish to use this occasion to re-commit ourselves to strengthen the Alliance through a common programme of action!
With these words we say Happy 91st ANC!
Mazibuko K. Jara (surname Jara)
Department of Media, Information & Publicity
South African Communist Party
3rd Floor, COSATU House, 1-5 Leyds Street
Braamfontein, 2017, Republic of South Africa
Tel: 27 11 339-3621/2, Fax: 27 11 339-4244 Cell: 083 651 027