President Thabo Mbeki has rejected an allegation made last week by Congress of South African Trade Unions general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi that government propaganda is like that used by Adolf Hitler’s regime in Nazi Germany.
”The charge that our government and the African National Congress [ANC] are behaving in a manner akin to the Nazis is very serious in the extreme,” he said in his weekly newsletter on the ANC website on Friday.
”More often than not, we have declined to comment on various negative statements that Vavi has made over the years about both our movement and government.
”However, it is not possible to ignore the grossly repugnant statement he made in Port Elizabeth,” Mbeki said.
Vavi is determined to ensure that especially the organised working class develop ”an understanding of our real and objective situation that bears no relationship to the truth”.
The truth that Vavi seeks to deny is that the ANC and the government constitute the very antithesis of Nazism in all respects, including racism and chauvinism, hostility to democracy and freedom of thought, contempt for the people and the working class and deification of force and military power.
”Accordingly, resort to propaganda similar to Nazi propaganda has no place and has never had any place in our struggle, our political and ideological work and our information processes,” Mbeki said.
The truth Vavi wants to deny is that the economy is developing very well, but needs to grow at higher rates and to continue to modernise itself.
”The standard of living of the masses of our people is improving significantly; however, we must accelerate our advance in this regard.
”The truth, repeated by our movement and government everyday, which Vavi wants to present as his special discovery, is that millions of our people remain mired in poverty and underdevelopment, with no access to jobs, basic services and therefore a decent life.
”As we have said repeatedly, including in our election manifestos, this dictates that the central and continuing objective of the policies and programmes of the democratic state must remain the creation of jobs, pushing back the frontiers of poverty and building an egalitarian, people-centred society,” he said. — Sapa