The masses are not blind

At the beginning of the week, September 30th, the ANC concluded its highly successful four-day National Policy Conference. The Conference had been preceded by extensive discussions in all structures of the ANC, from the branches upwards. The policy discussions were also enriched by inputs from other progressive organisations and individuals.

In his remarks summarising the outcome of the Policy Conference, Deputy President Jacob Zuma said: "The transformation process has never been easy, particularly if the change takes place within a revolutionary context. In our case, we must recognise the fact that we are in a period of a changing global situation. (Our) task is to develop policies that are able to address the problems faced by our people at a variety of levels, from the local tasks of a ward councillor to the challenge of providing leadership in a globalising world."

He went further to say: "In reviewing our Strategy and Tactics as adopted at our 50th National Congress in 1997, and in assessing key ANC and government policies, this Policy Conference has re-affirmed the general thrust of our policies and perspectives. Furthermore, the Policy Conference has identified many new challenges as well as the need to intensify the implementation of existing policies."

The policies considered and reaffirmed by the National Policy Conference were adopted to address the many problems our country faces. This was and has been done in the context of the general strategic tasks of the ANC.

The call of the National Policy Conference for the intensification of the implementation of existing policies echoes both our 1999 Election Manifesto and the resolutions of our 2000 Port Elizabeth National General Council, which demanded an accelerated pace of change towards a better life for all.

All thinking South Africans are aware of the problems and challenges our country and people face. These centre on the issue of the eradication of the legacy of colonialism and apartheid. They include many issues, from the establishment of a non-racial, non-sexist and prosperous society, to the achievement of an African Renaissance and the building of a just and equitable world order.

These thinking South Africans also know that it will take us time to overcome the terrible and deeply entrenched legacy that continues to define many aspects of our national life. The overwhelming majority of these thinking South Africans are the workers and the rest of the working people of our country. These masses respond to our movement and its policies on the basis of both their historical and contemporary experiences.

These experiences tell them that the ANC has stood with them for nine decades, consistently representing and advancing their interests. They know that because of its place among them and the leading role it has played, it has always supplied the persons considered by them as their local, provincial and national leaders.

These leaders, together with other activists and members of our movement, have not hesitated to occupy the front trenches in the struggle to repulse the deadly attacks and counter-attacks launched by those who sought to perpetuate our oppression. Through the decades, these representatives of the people have been ready to absorb the hardest blows thrown by the forces of oppression and exploitation. This has meant many things, from death and imprisonment, to intolerable harassment and unbridled hostile propaganda.

Despite intense repression, the vanguard of the movement for national liberation continued to escalate the struggle for the emancipation of the masses of the people. In the end, together with and at the head of the masses of our people, it ensured the victory of the democratic revolution in 1994.

At that moment, when the people were asked the question - whom do you want to assume the reigns of state power - they answered unequivocally, the ANC! When these masses were asked the same question five years later, they answered unequivocally, in even greater numbers, the ANC!

The first time round, in 1994, the people answered as they did because their historical experience told them that there was only one tried and tested representative they could trust. They knew that this representative would defend and advance their interests in the new world that was being born, refusing to tell them lies and rejecting the option to win their support by making false promises. That representative was, and is, the ANC.

The second time round, in 1999, the people answered as they did because both their historical and contemporary experiences conveyed to them the same truths. They had seen what had happened to them and to their country in the previous five years. That experience told them that the only mistake they made in 1994 was not to vote for their organisation in even larger numbers. In 1999 they acted to correct this mistake. Accordingly, they increased the majority that mandated the ANC to lead our country in the five-year period up to 2004.

When they did this, they freely chose to approve and endorse the policies the ANC put to them and the country as a whole, as contained in our Election Manifesto of 1999. These policies had been adopted at the 50th National Congress of the ANC held in 1997 and the preceding National Policy Conference, about which the masses of our people, and the country as a whole, had been informed.

As they overwhelmingly approved our policies in 1999 and gave us the popular mandate to implement them, they also endorsed the directive to accelerate their implementation. This was consistent with what we said to them, as well as their own direct and practical experience of the changes that had or had not taken place during the first five years of our liberation. Let us mention some of these.

What these masses knew was that many people who had lost their land through forced removals had repossessed the land of which they had been robbed. They knew that many farm workers who lived on farms could no longer be evicted arbitrarily, merely at the whim of the farm owners. They knew that many people in the rural areas now had access to piped clean water, electricity and primary health care centres.

The masses of our people knew that mothers and babies now had access to free health care. Children at schools could now have a free meal at school. Pensioners, children and people with disabilities could now enjoy more meaningful and equitable state support, to reduce the impact of the poverty that many among them continue to experience.

Contrary to everything that is trumpeted loudly everyday, some people took up jobs that had not existed before. Some people took up business, managerial and other opportunities that had not existed before. Doors in the professions that had been closed had begun to open, however reluctantly. State support had now become available to an entire people previously defined in state policy and practice as "the surplus people". Laws were approved and implemented to improve the living standards and quality of life of the workers and the working people as a whole.

In the period since then, our workers and working people have experienced further advances in these and other areas. At the same time, people other than their own political representative that they know, tell them that they have better policies. And yet these masses also know that the policies of their movement, of which they approve, work. From this they draw the natural conclusion that two or more different policies, intended to address the same issue, cannot all be correct.

I have said these workers and working people constitute the majority of the thinking people of our country. Anybody who has anything to do with these masses, including those who make false claims that we have lost contact with the masses, will know that among the people, lies have very short legs. These masses do not like being told untruths and deceived, on the assumption that they are simple-minded, and are only capable of responding to slogans, songs and the toyi-toyi.

More than anybody else, these masses understand that Rome could not be built in one day. They know that the pressing problem of unemployment cannot be solved overnight. They know that the shack settlements in our urban areas cannot be wiped out with the wave of a magic wand. They are perfectly aware of the fact that it will take a sustained effort for us to make clean water and sanitation available to all our people in both rural and urban areas. At the same time, their direct experience tells them that we are making progress on all these and other issues, steadily but surely.

Like their organisation, the ANC, these masses are impatient to change the conditions of misery imposed on us by our past. Like their organisation, the ANC, these masses are keen that we should accelerate the implementation of the policies and programmes we designed, to pull us out of this misery. Like their organisation, the ANC, these masses are convinced that these policies and programmes are correct. They do not believe that they should join an insurrection against policies and programmes they know are correct and humane, as they did against apartheid policies and programmes they knew were incorrect and inhuman.

The people waged a difficult, costly, protracted and successful struggle to end and negate their role as a protest movement and to transform themselves into a united reconstruction and development brigade. They will not allow that the clock should be reversed, so that, once more, they should everyday sing, senzeni na, maAfrika!

As they had done before, the leaders and the people, the vanguard and the masses, combined both in 1994 and 1999, and together answered the question -what is to be done! This united force has a responsibility to ensure that what it said should be done, is done. The National Policy Conference repeated this call.

Yet there are others who have decided that both the ANC and the masses of our people are wrong. These, who see themselves as our comrades, say that we must change the policies adopted at our 50th National Congress, reaffirmed at our National General Council and National Policy Conference, and mandated as national policy by the people in 1999. They say that whereas the ANC and the masses are blind, they have the eyes to see the disastrous folly of the decisions and the ways of the ANC and these masses.

To get their way, they have defied all advice and treated all views that differed with theirs with contempt. This includes the advice and the views of the ANC. Twice within a relatively short period of time, in August 2001 and October 2002, they have organised general political strikes. They did this to drag the workers and the working people into a struggle against both their organisation, the ANC, and the government they elected in 1999. Thus they presented these masses with the extraordinary and strange challenge to fight against and defeat themselves, apparently in their own interest!

As happened last year, the masses of our people have acted as they have done in all other instances when they have been asked to act against themselves, informed by their historical and contemporary experiences. The 2002 general political strike against the ANC and the government of the people failed more miserably than its predecessor. Last year, the organisers of the general political strike claimed that this failed strike was a success. They have done the same this year, once more in direct opposition to, and refusing that facts, the truth, should stand in the way of the victory of their cause.

They tell lies and claim easy victories because they are convinced that the masses they purport to represent are simple-minded, and only capable of responding to slogans, songs and the toyi-toyi. They have not understood that no amount of noise, even when it is amplified by the mass media, will so misinform the masses of our people, that they abandon their practice of relying on their historical and contemporary experiences.

They draw no lessons from even the simple fact that a leader of one of their factional allies against the ANC and the government, with whom they share not only hostility to our movement, but also their headquarters building, could not even win a municipal ward election in Soweto. This disastrous showing should have told them that they could never win the masses of the people to their side, by engaging in a desperate gamble to detach the masses from and turned against their organisation, the ANC.

They should also have known that the people know that, historically, those who opposed and worked to destroy the ANC, and tried to mobilise the workers to act against our movement, were the same people who sought to entrench and perpetuate their oppression.

But perhaps for the organisers of the general political strikes, it is not the truth that matters at this critical moment of our rebirth as a country, but the goals of those who objectively seek to defeat the ANC and the revolutionary masses of our country. The question cannot be avoided for too long - whose interests do they serve!

National Policy Conference

Democratic debate in pursuit of the interests of the poor

The deliberations and draft resolutions of the ANC's National Policy Conference, held from 27-30 September, confirm the movement's position as a disciplined force of the left, pursuing the interests of the poor.

Addressing the closing session of the conference, ANC Deputy President Jacob Zuma said the conference said the organisation should continue with its principled ideological struggle against neo-liberalism and ultra-leftism.

The draft resolutions produced by the policy conference will form the basis of discussions in branches over the next two months and at the ANC 51st National Conference in December.

The National Conference, which will set the policies of the organisation for at least the next five years, was described by Zuma as a convention of ANC cadres, a parliament of the people of South Africa. "To engage in this ANC policy-making process is to take part in determining the future of South Africa," he said.

The manner in which the policy process has been approached has reinforced the traditions of internal democratic debate that has long distinguished the ANC from other political formations in the country.

Preparations for the policy conference began last year with requests for submissions from all structures of the ANC, from government departments and parliamentary study groups. Ninety-seven regional and sub-regional policy workshops were held throughout the country. These involved the active participation of the ANC's Alliance partners and other organs of progressive civil society.

Provincial policy conferences were held in all provinces, bringing together over 8,000 delegates from ANC and other progressive structures. The ANC Policy Unit received more than 400 separate submissions from branches and regions. As a people's organisation the ANC invited, and indeed received, many comments and contributions from a diverse range of individuals and organisations.

Delegates to the policy conference came enriched by an extensive participatory process involving thousands of our people. They identified the need for a determined effort to ensure that the ANC's policies are implemented effectively and with more strategic co-ordination.

The draft resolution of the conference, which will be made public within the next few days, have underlined the overriding challenge of tackling poverty and unemployment in society.

Social Transformation

The policy conference adopted an important draft resolution calling on government to continue, with a sense of great urgency, with plans towards a comprehensive social security system. This should include the consolidation of all existing social measures such as the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) and all social grants. The strengthening and progressive expansion of the social wage, including removing obstacles to the delivery of free basic services to all in the shortest possible time, was also identified as a priority.

Conference also resolved to expand the reach of existing programmes, such as the child support grant and the school nutrition programme. It proposed that the age eligibility for the child support grant be raised, and that the school nutrition programme be extended, to secondary schools where possible.

In regard to health care, the conference proposed the strengthening of the distribution of drugs so that they reach all South Africans. It called for access to affordable medicines for all, including through the speeding up of the implementation of Act 90 of 1997, on generic substitution and parallel importation.

The conference called for the strengthening and acceleration of the implementation of our national AIDS strategy, as amplified by cabinet in April. The ANC must continue to be at the forefront of community mobilisation and leadership around HIV/AIDS, especially with regard to awareness, prevention, voluntary testing and counseling, treatment and care.

Economic transformation

The conference noted progress made in restructuring the South African economy, expanding its manufacturing base, diversifying the country's exports, skills development and black economic empowerment.

However, the conference noted the country's high unemployment, underpinning continued poverty and many other social problems. The conference called on government at all levels to embark on programmes that combine short-term measures for immediate relief with longer term interventions for sustainable job creation, skills training and alternative income generating opportunities. The draft resolutions supported a major extension of community-based public works programmes using labour intensive methods.

The conference reaffirmed ANC policy on restructuring of state-owned assets in a manner that enhances the developmental capacity of our state. It said the mandates of state-owned assets and enterprises must continue to be aligned with the social and economic needs of the ANC's developmental agenda. It affirmed the importance of the National Framework Agreement (NFA), and proposed its extension to apply to all spheres of government. Conference also identified the need to give priority to job retention, job creation and social plans in the process of restructuring.

The conference took note of the recent escalation of the price of basic foodstuffs and proposed that urgent and sustainable measures be introduced to mitigate the impact of these on the poor. A draft resolution calls for maintaining the current approach on inflation targeting, while ensuring that such targets are consistent with overall economic objectives. In this regard, monetary policy must be used in a flexible manner, consistent with the broad aims and objectives of ANC policy.

On agriculture and food security, the conference noted the work already done to reverse the legacy of centuries of dispossession. A draft resolution called on the ANC to engage with other formations and lead a popular campaign for rural development, including the formation and development of cooperatives, farmers and rural enterprises' associations.

Infrastructure development

The Policy Conference noted that greater levels of funding are now available to significantly enhance infrastructural development. A draft resolution proposed that the ANC should endorse the principle that infrastructure development is the primary driver of growth and development. A major emphasis on infrastructural development should focus, among other things, on job creation, poverty eradication and an expanded public works programme.

Peace and Security

Important progress with the Crime Prevention Strategy was noted. A draft resolution proposes that ANC structures play an active role in expanding the role of Community Policing Forums from their important community-police liaison work to include a wider focus on community safety.

The resolution calls for the strengthening of the criminal justice system, in particular to more effectively deal with crimes against women and children. The ANC will also be tracking the ongoing transformation of the SANDF and in particular focusing on its capacity to respond to international peace-keeping responsibilities.

Transformation of the State

The Policy Conference will propose to the National Conference that the ANC advocates the retention of the current proportional representation electoral system because of its inclusivity and nation-building features. It will also strongly recommend that the ANC actively review the constituency work of public representatives to enhance accountability to communities.

Considerable emphasis was placed on ensuring that the ANC take up the transformation challenges in local government. The conference proposed that the ANC create institutional capacity to give systematic political support to cadres who are deployed in local government. National and provincial spheres of government must actively participate in the process of formulating Municipal Integrated Development Plans, it is suggested. Branches of the ANC must complement the functioning of ward committees to mobilise communities to participate actively in programmes of governance and socio-economic development.

The pace of transformation of the public service should be accelerated through the creation of a single, development-oriented and integrated system of public administration, the conference said. Advances towards such a single public service should be done on an informed basis and be preceded by a review of the various capacity levels required by different government institutions.

Communications

The draft resolution on communications highlighted the need to ensure that there is much greater media diversity in all forms of media and that all South Africa's languages are more effectively represented, especially on the public broadcaster.

Organisational matters highlight the need for greater interaction with the media and the strengthening of communications capacity for this purpose, including the training of ANC cadres.

International

The draft resolutions propose an active ANC engagement with branches to empower and educate grass-roots structures around New Partnership for Africa 's Development (NEPAD) and the African Union (AU), and to consolidate popular participation around the struggle to overcome Africa's crisis of underdevelopment.

Zuma noted that the conference had engaged in democratic and open debate, whose quality reflects the fact that the call for the building of a New Cadre is beginning to be realised throughout the movement.

More Information:

• President's Opening Address to ANC Policy Conference, 27 September 2002
• Closing Statement on ANC Policy Conference, 30 September 2002
• ANC 51st National Conference

WHAT THE MEDIA SAYS.

'Zimbabwe judges are fair game'

On Tuesday, October 1, the public broadcaster, through the radio programme SAFM, reported on court proceedings taking place in Zimbabwe. This concerned the case brought before the Zimbabwe judges by the opposition party, the MDC, to challenge the legitimacy of the March 2002 Presidential Elections in that country.

During the course of this interview, the SABC anchor, Vuyo Mbuli, asked a journalist based in Zimbabwe, Peta Thornycroft representing the London 'Daily Telegraph', questions about the composition of the bench set up to hear the MDC case.

The obvious intention of the interviewer was to question the credibility of the judges brought together to hear this case. He posed the question about the persons chosen to hear the case. Accordingly, the interviewee made some disparaging remarks about at least one of the judges involved.

She went further to say that there were no "tried and tested" judges on the bench appointed to hear the matter. Among the "tried and tested" judges to whom she referred, are those that independent Zimbabwe inherited from the white minority regime of Ian Smith.

She alleged that one of these, a former Chief Justice, had been "forced" off the bench through a political campaign spearheaded by the war veterans.

She also made assertions that "in Zimbabwe", litigants have to make conscious decisions about which judges should hear their cases, presumably because the bench had been corrupted by the inclusion of judges who were not "tried and tested".

Clearly, both she and Mr Mbuli, the latter representing our public broadcaster, sought to cast serious doubts about the judicial competence of, at least, the three particular members of the Zimbabwe judiciary chosen to hear the MDC case.

In our country, we try very hard to respect the independence of the judiciary. Accordingly, none but the reckless question the integrity of any member of the judiciary. This is despite the fact that "tried and tested" members of this institution, whom we inherited from the apartheid years, continue to sit in judgement over the most delicate cases that bear on our efforts to transform our country away from its racist past.

The news broadcast we are speaking about, relating to a neighbouring country, suggests that our public broadcaster has other ideas. It seems to believe that judges in Zimbabwe are fair game. This entitles our public broadcaster, in our name, to denigrate them as it wishes, supported by its friends outside our country.

It is strange and alarming that the management and the board of the SABC permits that this gross irregularity should occur. But then, given what the public broadcaster does regularly, to defy its policy framework and the ethical code that should inform all journalism, we should not be surprised.

However, the least we can do, is to express our amazement and deep concern at what the public broadcaster did on October 1, ostensibly in the name of the people of South Africa. The MDC had sufficient confidence in their country's judiciary to refer their critically important matter to the same judiciary.

It is astounding that the South African public broadcaster should consider it its right and within its competence, to communicate the message that this judiciary is nothing more than a bunch of political stooges, who have no capacity impartially to adjudicate the laws of Zimbabwe.

We wonder what the SABC thinks of our own judges. To be consistent, it must also have the greatest confidence in our own "tried and tested" judges, as opposed to those that Ms Thornycroft described as having been appointed "last year and this year."

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