NUMSA salutes SASCO on its 20 years of existence!
6 September 2011
The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) salutes the leadership and the entire membership of the South African Students’ Congress (SASCO) on the occasion of its 20th anniversary today 6 September 2011.
The SA Students’ Congress (SASCO) remains a trusted and reliable of the workers and the poor as we advance and deepen the National Democratic Revolution (NDR) as encapsulated in the Freedom Charter.
The trade union movement and the liberation movement as a whole as led by the African National Congress (ANC) and the vanguard party of the working class, the South African Communist Party (SACP), will forever remain indebted to SASCO for its continuous role of producing finest cadres and best activists for the movement schooled and refined in Marxism-Leninism.
Some of its products and cadres are serving the trade union movement and the mass democratic movement with distinction, and some of them are no longer with us as we celebrate this milestone and historic moment of the student movement.
As we salute SASCO, it is befitting to honour and remember those gallant fighters and leaders of the student movement who are no longer with us today, such as Chule ‘KK’ Papiyane, Killer Gxavu, Fheya Kulati, Wanga Sigila, Xola Nene, S’miso Nkwanyana, Sphiwe Zuma, Cloyd Qavane and countless others.
These revolutionary student heroes name’s are engraved in our hearts as we struggle for free and quality public education for all, as we advance the struggle for the total ban of labour brokers, as we agitate for a New Growth Path for Full Employment, as a we engage in the battle of ideas for nationalisation and socialization of the means of production as commanded by the Freedom Charter, as we consolidate the hegemony of the progressive forces in our own country.
This generation of student heroes should be proud wherever they are in the nooks and crannies of the universe because the current generation of SASCO cadres and leadership are still hoisting high the flag of the organisation in pursuit of the goals of the NDR as encapsulated in the Freedom Charter.
NUMSA an affiliate of COSATU, which is part of the liberation movement as led by the ANC, is proud to identify itself with SASCO. Our relations with SASCO are not parental, but are class orientated and political relations. The ideological orientation and posture of SASCO is sacrosanct with that of NUMSA.
The bulk memberships of SASCO are future workers and trade unionists, but above all they are an intellectual reservoir for both liberation movement and the Alliance as a whole. The ideological and political clarity of SASCO and the student movement in general represents the strength and depth of working class leadership of the revolutionary forces in South Africa and the world over.
As we mark the 20th anniversary of SASCO we want to call on the students given their transitional class location in society to remain bias to the struggles of the workers and the poor. Our country has become one of the most unequal societies in the world as a result of greed and barbarity of the crisis-ridden Capitalist system. We are living in a country where opulence and crass materialism is glorified and tolerated by society.
We are living in a country where the scourge of HIV/AIDS pandemic is ravaging our society, especially the youth. We are living in country where corruption is rife and has a potential to plunge our country into a banana republic. We are living in a homophobic and patriarchal society. All these pitfalls are a manifestation of the immoral and inhumane capitalist system.
We need the class consciousness and ideological clarity of SASCO to mobilise our youth and broader society behind the struggle to overthrow Capitalism. SASCO should be playing a key role in the Progressive Youth Alliance (PYA) to infuse class consciousness amongst the youth.
By doing so, SASCO will be isolating demagogic posturing bedeviling the youth movement which has a potential to co-opt the vulnerable and marginalized young people in society. SASCO should also be in the front-line struggle to expose and fight against seated and embedded Kebble-ism or power of money being used to influence youth leadership on factional and sectarian positions in the broader movement.
We need SASCO to rally the studying youth and youth in general to resolve the massive youth unemployment in our country. We should be in the front-line battle to reject any efforts by government to bribe capital through the proposed Youth Wage Subsidy in order to ease the burden of unemployment amongst the youth.
This will be another way of giving power to capital to destroy permanent jobs and creation of a two-tier labour system through the absorption of young unskilled workers paid poverty wages to meet their profit margins. This is a battle we should not lose!
Source
Numsa Press Release