Cape Town, 4 September 2009
Programme Director
The Rector, Professor Brian O'Connell
The President of SASCO, Mawethu Rune
Members of the Provincial Executive Committee of SASCO in the Western Cape
Members of the Dullar Omar Regional Executive Committee of the ANC Youth League
The Branch Chairperson and Secretary of the ANC Youth League
The Branch Chairperson and Secretary of SASCO
The Branch Political Commissar of the ANC Youth League
Comrades and Friends
It was with humility that I received an invitation to address this Political School from the Office of the Political Commissar of the African National Congress Youth League of the University of the Western Cape Branch, Cde Mxolisi Vilakazi. I decided to readily accept the invitation because it is one of the concrete steps that we, as the movement of the people, have taken to reposition ourselves at the centre of the transformation of our country.
The Commissar had suggested eight broad themes from which I could choose. Each of these themes deserve a Political discussion in their own right, and indeed, the movement of our people is continuously seized with intellectual discourses on them. I have accordingly chosen to deal with the topic: "Relevance of the Polokwane Resolutions to The Young Lions."
Comrades and Friends!
Having seen and witnessed what a dedicated youth corpse can achieve if it is focused on a clear political agenda, I am addressing this political school from the knowledge that there are many among the current thinkers and sociologists who have tried tirelessly, but at times failed miserably, to airbrush the role that the youth of South Africa has played in the liberation struggle of our country.
As we gather here, we should therefore readily admit, that today is not like yesterday, and that tomorrow will never be like today. The dynamic nature of our world does not allow us to linger too long on the solutions of yesteryear, as these may be redundant. Those who study Information Technology may know this very well, how certain programmes hailed as new solutions are often replaced with new and better ones within a short space of time. What this means is that the youth themselves must be dynamic and versatile if they are to cope with our rapidly changing world.
Each one of us should always be seized with the need to preserve the character, culture and values of our movement in a changing and indeed a dynamic world. As we steam ahead with our preparations for our Movement's Centenary in 2012, we need to remember the resolution of the 1942 Conference of raising 1 million ANC members. We need to do so by the time we celebrate the Centenary itself.
And equally important, we must continuously clarify to ourselves as to what are the ideological and political dispositions that faces us as a movement both at national and international level. The process towards the National General Council, the Policy Conference and ultimately the National Conference dealt with these and many other issues. Significantly, the National Conference made resolutions on various policy issues as well as elected a leadership collective, the sum of which amounts to all of us as marching orders.
As students, you must never loose sight of the fact that you must grapple with the various challenges facing our country and world, and give exposition of the underlying laws of historical motion. What you must answer, is the basic question of why things happen the way they do. We must understand what are the internal laws of motion that thrust an object forward, and what are the brakes that stall it, as this will give us clue as to the pace of our transformation agenda with regards to constraints and opportunities. As analysts make their views known in the public domain, we as revolutionaries must seek to understand what are the underlying factors which are often not stated or deliberately hidden, as to the reasons of the various articulations that we have to contend with.
In simple terms, we must grapple with the dialectical and historical conception of history as this explains what forces are at play and for whose benefit are these forces arrayed.
Therefore, in analyzing the process towards, during and post Polokwane, these are the tools of analysis that we often use to simplify the various complex challenges we are faced with, and to consequently chart a way forward as indeed we did in Polokwane. This helps us so that we do not abide by illusions as the characterization of right and wrong, progressive and retrogressive, is often cast within the web of contestation, that often conceal the real reason as to why certain perspectives are advanced and others are opposed. Often in the name of the noble good, those opposed to our transformation agenda, would characterize our resolutions and our transformation trajectory as something inconsistent with logic and the common good of society.
As we convened in Polokwane, we were under no illusion as to the fact that the moral authority of our movement will continuously face stiff challenges from our political adversaries, who in all intent and purposes seek to preserve the status quo that has hitherto benefited them at the expense of the masses of our people.
Therefore this is the premise from which we must move as we deal with the thematic question of the "relevance of the Polokwane resolutions to the youth", as you yourselves have coined it.
Comrades and Friends!
The struggle of the movement is policy and principle driven, and in this Political School, we should resist all attempts to portray one member of the African National Congress as more pious than the other, for it is in these divisions that the agents of political forces opposed to our political agenda seek to divide our movement. There is one African National Congress, and there is one progressive movement led by the African National Congress. If Polokwane has been portrayed as a conference in disarray, and the alliance at each other's throat, I am pleased to indicate that post-Polokwane, the movement, its constituencies and the alliance, are more united than before. Unlike those who predicted that all hell would break lose, the constituencies have been increased. Unlike those who thought there would be mayhem, the NEC has been increased!
Like the Morogoro, Kabwe; Durban; Bloemfontein Mafikeng and Stellenbosch Conferences of our movement, Polokowane should be seen not only in elective terms, but as yet another epoch defining Conference, where new marching orders are issued from our comrades, and when the movement gets to chart a new direction for itself.
What may be different is our extra dedication to our movement, and as we face more challenges as a result of the changed environment resulting from our hard won revolution. We should be determined to defend this revolution that many of our people paid the ultimate price.
I wish to call for the vigilance by all the cadres of the movement by reiterating what I raised at the Mpumalanga Provincial Conference last month. Our revolutionary ideology is rubbished as something of the past and therefore outdated. Our quest to correct racial imbalances of the past is itself rubbished as reverse racism. Affirmative action is not only presented as reverse racism but also as responsible for the claimed economic woes of our people in South Africa since 1994.
Some have attempted to portray the euphoria of the 1994 democratic breakthrough as the ultimate victory that should not have been followed with concerted efforts at black economic empowerment, when in fact clearly the apartheid structural inequalities still define our socio-economic realities mainly in terms of race. Even those who jailed Nelson Mandela, today they hypocritically celebrate his life, while rubbishing the legacy that he stood for as an ANC leader throughout his life.
The tactic by our detractors is to suggest that everything was fine with past leaders such as Luthuli, Tambo and Mandela, but that everything is wrong with current ANC leaders. The same is said of the Women's League and the Youth League, in that past generations in both these structures were noble beings and that today's women and youth offer nothing to be proud of.
These are revisionists who forget that even those past heroes whom we celebrate today were in fact vilified during their times of ANC leadership by our opponents antecedents.
I now return to the random selection of policy interventions which were taken at Polokwane and which Comrades gathered today should implement with vigour.
At the 51st National Conference in Stellenbosch, a resolution was made that there should be sport desks established. Since little or no progress had been made in this regard, the Polokwane Conference instructed that there should be an immediate implementation of this resolution.
In order to create seamless integration, Conference resolved to amalgamate the National Youth Commission and Umsobomvu Youth Fund in 2008, and the integration of these two institutions should create the enabling conditions of the youth of our country to access facilities previously unavailable to them and to assist in the economic development of our country. Against the backdrop of this resolution, was the naked facts about high levels of youth unemployment.
The National General Council adopted The Integrated Youth Development Strategy. In order to take the Strategy a step further, Conference resolved that the Strategy should be made government policy that had to be executed by the National Youth Development Agency. It was also resolved that the National Youth Service Programme be also made government policy.
The private sector has been too reluctant to participate in issues concerning youth. Conference resolved that the private sector should make contributions to the National Youth Service Programme as well as increase its intake of young people in Learnership Programmes. Delegates observed that a larger National Youth Service will link the Industrial Development Strategy with the key youth development programmes and help advance youth skills development.
Development financial institutions were to be built and developed so that they could respond concretely to the needs of youth and women.
The youth is, in terms of the Polokwane resolution, also asked to be part and parcel of the community policing so as to protect the community and property. Conference was fully aware that integral to defending our National Democratic Revolution is to defeat the scourge of crime that in many ways undermines the values that we fought for.
Conference also raised concerns that our justice system still incarcerates our children and youth with hardened criminals and thus reduces the risk of them being upright citizens of our country post their incarceration. By doing so, our youth are caught up in a perpetual vicious cycle of prison life because of the corrosive influence that hardened criminals have on them. Conference categorically called for the capacitation of Secure Care Centres.
In recognition of the role that our youth should play in our continent, delegates supported the revival of the Pan African Youth Movement together with the Pan African Women's Organization. You will remember that African Nationalism, inspired those who formed the ANC in 1912, and those who also formed the ANC Youth League in 1944 and continental solidarity remains as relevant as ever.
The public broadcaster is tasked with increasing the local content that is consistent with the outlook of the country's constitution and demographics, including special focus on the issues that affect marginalized groups such as people with disabilities, women and the youth.
Conference also resolved to protect the children and youth from harmful advertising.
Conference specifically called for the Media Development Diversity Agency to develop media that is particularly aimed at women, children, youth and people with disabilities.
I must hasten to state that what I have done is to highlight only twelve parts of the resolutions that pertain to the youth and children but the whole text of the resolutions of Conference, calls for the Youth League to defend each and every one of those resolutions. The past, the present and the future of all our movement and alliance and our people, Black and White, is intertwined in different ways and is emphasized in the whole text of the resolutions.
Allow me then to highlight, some of the processes that are in motion in fulfillment of some of the resolutions of Conference.
In terms of organizational renewal, we have re-asserted the branch as the basic unit of the movement and have recognized the MKMVA as a structure within the movement and there is work in progress on the veterans and comrades of advanced age, ex-combatants and ex-political prisoners.
In terms of the single police service, the Parliamentary process of public consultations around the dissolution of the Directorate of Special Prosecutions, otherwise known as the Scorpions, has just been completed and we believe in the not too distant future this matter will be put to rest once and for all.
In terms of the transformation of the judiciary, for which we have been calling since the Mafikeng and the Stellenbosch Conferences is now under way, and the whole criminal justice system will now be revamped. We know some have misconstrued our call for the judiciary to transform to imply we intend to undermine the integrity of the judiciary and its understood independence.
As I speak today, and as many of my Comrades have done elsewhere in Political Schools, we are implementing the resolution around the need for political education and cadreship development as per the resolution of conference. This is critical as it will inform the quality of our movement's membership long into the future.
In line with Conference resolution on international work and building party to party relations, the President of the African National Congress is currently in Tanzania to extend our fraternal relationships with the Chama Cha Mapinduzi Party of Tanzania and significantly will visit Morogoro where we held our epochal Conference from 5 April to 1 May 1969.
In line with Conference resolution, pensionable age is being equalized and will now be set at 60 years irrespective of gender by the year 2010.
We have worked closely with our alliance partners while clearly stating that Alliance partners have a right to advance their strategic objectives as informed by their organizational autonomy, independence and the constituencies they serve.
Some provinces are well ahead in implementing the expansion of the "No fee schools", and we are confident that the process is going to be speeded up as poverty in our homes grows as a result of high food prices and unpredictable energy prices.
On the issue of land ownership, National Conference resolved to expedite transferring land to the previously marginalized, with the aim of ensuring that at least 30% of agricultural land is transferred by 2014.
The Integrated Infrastructure Rollout Plan currently being implemented within Government is in accordance with Conference resolution. There is no doubt that our infrastructure programmes that include roads, rail, bridges, stadiums, airports and other such public works programmes, will enable our economy to grow and meet our people's social and economic needs in the long run. These multibillion projects, further enhanced by the hosting of the 2010 FIFA World Cup are the much needed injection into vibrant economic activities on a large scale.
In relation to climate change, Cabinet Lekgotla has adopted the work in progress around the Long Term Mitigation Scenarios and this issue of climate is important in relation to the weather-related havocs that we are experiencing recently in KwaZulu-Natal and here in the Western Cape, as well as elsewhere in the world.
Health and education have been prioritized by our movement as the pillars of our social development and these have been reintegrated into one co-ordinated mechanism. Comrade Secretary General Gwede Mantashe has launched the new approach towards Health and education last month in Kliptown.
The child support grant has been extended.
The task of implementing the resolutions of Polokwane behooves all of us to accept that this is the decision of the delegates of Conference. In the culture of our movement, it is immaterial whether you had agreed with the resolution or not, but that once such a resolution has been made, all of us have got to put our shoulder to the wheel to see to it that those resolutions are implemented. This is what we mean by democratic centralism which informs disciplined behavior amidst various robust debates.
However, we have noted that in some parts of the country, the culture that we have known the ANC for seem to be violated by people who clearly do not hold the interests of the organization at heart. There seems to be the erosion of the ANC's organizational principles, wherein we build the organization as machinery to further our revolutionary struggle.
However, it seems some people have made it their mission, to join the ANC merely to further their own commercial interests. The branch is viewed not as a basic unit for our revolutionary agenda any longer by these opportunists, but as a means to further their personal interests. For this reason, branch membership recruitment is done for the sole purpose of ensuring that the person doing the recruitment position himself or herself to be elected leader.
As a movement, we once again call upon the youth, to be the moral backbone of our movement and help stop this commercialization of the ANC! We believe that the youth will not agree to inherit an organization at branch, regional, provincial or national level that has been corrupted. Instead we believe that the youth will ensure that this rot steadily eroding the timeless culture of our movement is stopped at its tracks!
But the youth cannot be able to do any of the things that we hope they must do, unless they have been equipped with the necessary skills to ensure comprehensive transformation takes place in the manner and magnitude that we desire.
I therefore urge you to give more effort in your studies because the transformation agenda that we agreed to at Polokwane requires that the youth must be qualified to do various tasks that in turn require specialized skills. As some have said, we must make education a fashionable thing. This is because we need doctors, nurses, engineers, scientists, accountants, artisans, educators, lawyers, judges and many other skills.
We cannot be able to transform the judiciary, for instance, if our youth do not qualify as lawyers and ultimately become judges. This is what we mean when we say the youth are the future, it is not a statement meant to patronize the youth, but to live to the dialectical reality of the laws of nature that are evident in history, that each and every generation must pass on and leave the baton of its struggle to subsequent generations. Your generation has inherited freedom and democracy, what you make of it will be judged by history.
Before I conclude, I would like to reflect on the stereotypic approach that some in our society make of our youth.
Firstly, adults have persistently looked at youth from the prism of adulthood and have never understood the dynamics under which the youth operate, even though they, now being adults, were once youth themselves.
Secondly, society has expected youth to behave in manners that reproduce the moral values of the particular society, even when the conditions of their lives have changed considerably and those values have been overtaken by time and events. Scientifically, the given contradictions in society generate their own values, and these are the evolving values that the youth must continue to unravel to inform their own epochal-political engagement.
Thirdly, the thought peddlers self appointed as intellectuals in the public domain have sought to rubbish the role of the youth in the liberation struggle of this country.
Fourthly, there is a mistaken notion that the youth cannot make rational decisions, and that what appears to be rational decisions are emotional outbursts driven by immaturity.
As I have been a member of a youth organization myself, I can confess that neither of these stereotypes is correct, because learning is part of being youth. Yet again, historically the youth have been at the frontiers of our development in many ways.
As I conclude, I call on all our comrades, the youth and veterans, young and old, women and children, to rally behind the clarion call of our leadership to implement each and every one of the Polokwane resolutions, and to be vocal in the defense of our movement and our National Democratic Revolution.
But we must also debate what our movement means when for instance it resolved in Polokwane on the increased importance of the role of the Developmental State. We must ask ourselves and answer the question: what are the implications of such a resolution in our transformation agenda? We must grapple with these notions as we must make informed contributions towards the centenary conference in 2012. But we must not forget the primary task of answering the question of how we can best implement the resolutions already made in Polokwane.
In order to defend these resolutions, we need to work tirelessly towards increasing our parliamentary majority in the next National General Elections.
Comrades and Friends!
If we are not an overwhelming majority in government, there is no guarantee that these resolutions will be implemented, as our adversaries will employ every trick in the book to delay the transformation we need for our country. No other party or organization has the welfare of our people at heart, and no other organization has been prepared to sacrifice for the people of this country than our own organization.
What our adversaries seek to challenge, is the moral authority of our movement. By so doing, they hope to derail our development programme, and create a society where democracy merely means elections. Of course we have embarked on various development programmes since we came into power in 1994. But the magnitude of the challenges of over 300 years of colonial marginisalisation and over four decades of apartheid oppression was not to be easily eradicated within 14 years. However, we must take stock of the strides we have made, while also admitting and correcting the mistakes we have made, as not only when we approach next year's National General Elections but as we seek to implement the resolutions we made in Polokwane.
Finally, so that none of you may harbour any illusion about the outcomes of Polokwane. We believe that the adoption of resolutions and election of leadership was nothing other than the continued tradition of the ANC when convened in National Conferences since 1912. If there were any victory in Polokwane, it was the continued victory of the branch, as the National Conference is the gathering of branch delegates. It was the continued victory of our democratic processes which as it seems stunned many intellectuals and commentators, possibly many who themselves do not necessarily belong to democratic institutions and therefore could not fully comprehend Polokwane.
We have none but ourselves on our side.
VIVA ANC YOUTH LEAGUE VIVA!
VIVA SASCO VIVA!
AMANDLA!
I thank you.