Struggle hero Robert Sobukwe.
ANC did cause Marikana
When Julius Malema was president of the ANC Youth League, he blamed Pan Africanist Congress founding president Robert Sobukwe for leading the people of Sharpeville to their deaths on March 21 1960. He was probably cajoled by the likes of ANC President Jacob Zuma to make that outrageous statement.
But when Malema testified at the Human Rights Commission in the case about the Dubul’ ibhunu (Shoot the boer) song, he said the song was against the system of apartheid, not against the boers.
Malema put on his blinkers and blamed Sobukwe and the PAC, not the apartheid government. The likes of Zuma didn’t call him to order.
Last week in Parliament, Malema blamed the ANC government for killing miners at Marikana; he didn’t blame Joseph Mathunjwa and the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union. The ANC and its chairperson of the National Council of Provinces, Thandi Modise, were outraged by Malema’s utterances and expelled him from Parliament.
The ANC and Malema are hypocritical: Malema knew quite well that it was the apartheid government that massacred the demonstrators at Sharpeville. Now that the shoe is on the other foot, the ANC is crying foul when it is accused of responsibility for the Marikana massacre.
Malema and the ANC can’t have their cake and eat it. If Sobukwe and the PAC were responsible for the Sharpeville massacre, as Malema once claimed, then he must blame the ANC for the Marikana massacre. By the same token, if the ANC absolves itself of the Marikana massacre, then it should equally absolve the National Party government of the Sharpeville and Soweto massacres – which is a tall order. Malema and the ANC should apologise to the PAC and the Sobukwe family.
After March 21 1960, the ANC in exile claimed authorship of the 1960 anti–pass campaign that culminated in Sharpeville. It deliberately distorted the anti–pass campaign in Western capitals.
The National Party government was responsible for the atrocities it perpetrated during the apartheid days, the same way the ANC government is responsible for the Marikana massacre.
The shenanigans to do with expelling Malema from Parliament are not going to change the fact that the ANC government is responsible for Marikana. – Sam Ditshego, Kagiso
Discuss, don’t judge
Nick Goldberg’s argument ( Red beret talk is old hat) is an old one and too narrow–minded to warrant any attention.
Andile Mngixtama writes on an ideology called Marxism, which was distilled in some of the most prestigious universities in the world, and the likes of Marx and other Young Hegelians were meeting in some of the finest bars near their campuses. If people can’t engage in discussions, they must not waste our time attacking individuals. – Geoffrey Modisha
• See ‘Some of us have no space in EFF’
Africanists are the true socialists
A democratic option needed for Malema-tarianism
M&G in desperate bid to undermine workers
It is urgent to respond to the article Barbs fly in the battle of the unions, which dealt with the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa’s Transnet strike.
We have long said that the Mail & Guardian is the voice of Anglo American. The article confirms it once again.
What the M&G article does, wittingly or unwittingly, is prepare the ground for the killing of both Numsa and the South African Transport and Allied Workers’ Union (Satawu) members, in a desperate attempt by imperialism to divert the growing resistance by the working class against the state.
It is clear that the M&G has an agenda to discredit both militant workers in general and Numsa in particular. This is not a clash between unions but the workers’ political break from an alliance that has shown, and shows every day, that there is nothing for workers within it.
Numsa is already overstretched and would not have actively sought out port workers to split Satawu deliberately. If Numsa had such a campaign, thousands more would have broken away from Satawu.
Numsa’s acceptance of the port workers, who were in any case breaking away from Satawu, has at least kept militant workers within Cosatu. This is a step forward, rather than to have allowed a weakening of Cosatu as a federation.
Workers in the ANC and Cosatu need to ask themselves a question about the ANC election manifesto: Has the ANC really taken steps to limit the exploitative conditions of labour brokers?
Workers should be challenging Satawu, Cosatu and ANC leaders about labour brokers at all the ports. Transnet is a state entity; surely the ANC can abolish labour brokers there overnight. If it does not do so, what does that say about the class character of the ANC? – Workers International
‘Growth’ only inclusive of big monopolies
The South African Government News Agency reports Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa as saying: “One of the key issues that we have to address is creating jobs and to achieve this, we require fast and, much more inclusive economic growth.”
But what does he mean by “inclusive economic growth”? Can it be inclusive when the government, through the National Development Plan, keeps it restricted to large interests with monopolies?
See, for example, the energy sector. Years ago it was decided to end Eskom’s monopoly by cutting back its operations in transmission and generation, creating an Independent System and Market Operator Bill to arbitrate the sector, facilitate private entry and decentralise the sector.
Nothing has been done. The sector is still fully in Eskom’s hands. The few private companies that have come into the sector are the wealthy ones that can afford the demanding and restricting criteria of Eskom and the government.
Very little has changed – and we run out of power while the authorities make big promises. – Pierrelouis Lemercier