7 January 2005
The South African Communist Party, an ally of the African National Congress (ANC) for many decades, salutes and congratulates the ANC on the occasion of its 93rd Anniversary, 8 January 2005. It is an anniversary that coincides with other important anniversaries, notably the 50th anniversary of the Freedom Charter, the 40th anniversary of the South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU), and the 20th anniversary of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU). Clearly, the ANC?s 93rd anniversary is not a mere ritual or formality. It is a strategic moment for the people of our country, especially the workers and the poor to reflect on progress made over the last year and to chart the way ahead for the next year.
A lot of decisive progress made
It is our belief that this must be the year in which the ANC, together with its allies, needs a frank assessment of progress made towards the realisation of the objectives of the Freedom Charter. We, as the SACP, are satisfied about a lot of progress our movement, government and the country have made towards achieving some of the objectives as contained in the Freedom Charter.
Some of the most important achievements include the further consolidation and stabilisation of our democracy, manifested by, amongst other things, the holding of peaceful third democratic elections last year and the celebration of ten years of our democracy. The ANC increased its electoral majority and now leads government in all nine provinces. We also welcome the steady expansion of the social security net, especially the extension of the child grant.
We also note and welcome some of the new policy initiatives by the ANC government. These include the new housing and settlement programme, including planned densification, rental stock and social housing. This will go a long way in reversing apartheid geography and the creation of new settlements in line with the non-racial democratic order. We are particularly pleased about government?s commitment to strengthening the parastatal sector as a strategic lever to create work and fight poverty.
The renewed focus and strategies on SMEs and co-operatives will go a long way towards the creation of sustainable livelihoods, households and communities. We also appreciate government?s positive response to some of the aspects and propositions made by the SACP-led financial sector campaign. In particular we welcome the proposed credit law reforms, including the regulation of the credit bureaux, as well as planned pension fund reforms, as part of an attempt to redirect the financial sector to release the resources necessary for growth and development in our country. On our part we will use 2005 to intensify the financial sector campaign, also as part of the International Year of Micro-Credit.
The ANC Manifesto commitment to accelerate land reform and the transfer of 30% of productive land by 2014, is an important step in the struggle for land and agrarian transformation in favour of the workers and the poor. As the SACP we have last year launched, through our Red October Campaign, our land and agrarian reform campaign under the slogan ?Mawubuye Umhlaba?. We are convinced that this campaign will add further impetus, by mobilising our people in both rural and urban areas, to the Manifesto commitments.
All these advances, together with many others, are in the deepest interests of the working class and the poor and important progress towards the realisation of some of the key clauses of the Freedom Charter. As the SACP we will continue to play our part in ensuring that all these commitments and advances are built upon, as part of consolidating and deepening the national democratic revolution.
For the workers and the poor of our country, these steps lay an important foundation for accelerating transformation in the second decade of our freedom.
Many challenges still lie ahead
We are however acutely aware that despite all these very important achievements, many challenges still lie ahead. The single biggest challenge is that identified by the ANC Manifesto, creating work and fighting poverty. Though our economy is growing, and is showing signs of further growth, this is not translating into quality and sustainable jobs. Key sector of our economy continue to shed jobs. It is for these reasons that one of the major challenges is that of driving the implementation of the resolutions of the Growth and Development Summit. The workers and the poor of our country expect of the ANC, both in government and at mass level, to lead a programme of disciplining, regulate and direct the resources in both public and private hands to create work and fight poverty. This is necessary to change the trajectory of the current accumulation regime away from benefitting only an elite few, but for the benefit of the overwhelming majority of our people.
In many local communities, struggles for sustainable livelihoods are negatively and seriously impacted on by the combined health, social and economic effects of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. In many of these local communities, it is mainly women who bear the brunt of this cruel cycle: women are more vulnerable to HIV-infection, the increasing burden of unpaid labour, and lack of access to health and social services which take into account the needs of poor women. The ANC and its allies are best placed to drive a sustainable government and mass campaign to defeat the scourge of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, using the comprehensive HIV/AIDS programme in place.
These challenges, amongst others, are at the heart of addressing the interrelated class, national and gender contradictions in our society. In this regard the mobilisation of the motive forces of the national democratic revolution, especially the working class, is a key challenge in the second decade of our freedom. This is even more critical given the fact that one of the key lessons from the first decade of our freedom is that the capitalist market has failed dismally to address even the most basic of our people?s needs. In fact the continued entrenchment of the capitalist market in all of our society directly undermines the many gains made. It is therefore critical to mobilise the motive forces of the NDR as part of deepening the struggle for the realisation of the ideals of the Freedom Charter ? particularly that THE WEALTH OF THE COUNTRY SHALL BE SHARED AMONGST THE PEOPLE AS A WHOLE.
Solidarity in Africa and the world
Meeting South Africa?s developmental challenges cannot be separated from the international struggle for peace, social progress and democracy in Africa and the world. Necessarily, this struggle must be against the plundering of our world by imperialism, US unilateralism, war and undemocratic regimes.
We welcome the very important role that the ANC and government are playing on the international front, especially in our continent. We hope that in the years ahead we will intensify this work, and our party will play its role in support of this, both as part of the Alliance, and independently as a working class political formation.
The ANC-led alliance must provide inspiration and strengthen the progressive forces for peace, development and democracy on the African continent and the developing world. It is correct therefore that the Alliance partners have committed themselves to work collectively to:
Strengthen the progressive movement on the African continent and assisting party, union and civil society formations to contribute meaningfully to peace, democracy and development
Build the women?s movement in Africa through, inter-alia, exchanges of women in popular organisations between South Africa and the rest of the continent
Solidarity with the struggle of the Palestinian people for national self-determination
Participate in the global movement for development, democracy and social justice through solidarity with the struggles of the people of Cuba, Sudan, Haiti, Swaziland, Iraq, Myanmar, Zimbabwe and other parts of the world.
Building People?s Power where we live
The many advances made by our government needs to be simultaneously buttressed and informed by the ongoing mass mobilisation of our people. The critical challenge over the next decade will be to ensure that democratic and developmental local government empowers our people to act as their own liberators and directs reconstruction at local level. Amongst the important tasks that local government must address is the creation of Integrated Development Programmes which are the product of mass participation of the community, grappling with the priorities identified by our people in particular women.
In this regard, the ?Know your neighbourhood? campaign of the alliance, to be launched this year, is critical. Through this campaign, the alliance must be in touch with the daily problems and needs of communities, and we must have the information, capacity and resources that can help and mobilise communities to address their problems. Alliance activists must root themselves in communities and be at the centre of resolving community and other social problems and mobilising communities into struggles and campaigns for service delivery and access to basic needs. This mass mobilisation needs to be harmonised and drive the work of community development workers. This campaign must also be the basis upon which we approach the local government elections.
We expect the ANC to play a leading role in this challenge of the mobilisation of the mass of our people to achieve these and many other goals.
Building the ANC-led Alliance
Given the above tasks, building and strengthening the alliance is not an optional extra but a strategic necessity. The overwhelming victory of the ANC in the 2004 general election was based on the energies, aspirations and interests of the workers and the poor and was achieved on the basis of unity in action of the entire Alliance. Cadres of the Alliance were at the vanguard of this mobilisation in every province, in every community. In countless face to face meetings with masses of our people the Alliance was able to identify problems that ordinary South Africans face, and listen to the solutions that the masses themselves put forward. It is therefore vital that the Alliance builds upon the positive legacy of 2004, and intensifies popular mobilisation in the implementation of the 2004 manifesto.
The Alliance must remain united around a common vision of a better South Africa as articulated in the Freedom Charter, which remains the foundation stone for our common programme.
The ANC can count on the South African Communist Party as a reliable partner in the struggle to achieve the goals of the national democratic revolution. We will do this through the joint alliance programmes as well as through our own independent programmes. Our primary task shall continue to be the building of the political capacity and confidence of the working class as main motive force of the national democratic revolution.
A happy and revolutionary 93rd anniversary!
CONTACT:
Mazibuko Kanyiso Jara (surname Jara)
Head of the Office of the General Secretary
South African Communist Party (SACP)
Tel: 011 339-3621/2
Fax: 011 339-4244/6880
Cell: 083 651 0271
Email: mazibuko@sacp.org.za
Website: www.sacp.org.za