The South African Cabinet has backed President Thabo Mbeki in rejecting alleged suggestions by Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi of similarities between government propaganda and that used by Adolf Hitler’s regime in Nazi Germany.
Wednesday’s fortnightly Cabinet meeting ”took exception to the ill-informed and misleading comments” attributed to Vavi ”suggesting similarity between government communication of the country’s successes to Nazi propaganda”, government communications head Themba Maseko told a media briefing on Thursday.
”Such comments are a denial of the progress we are making in the fight against poverty as documented in the Ten Year Review Report and the Macro Social Report, as well as the regular reports on the implementation of the programme of action,” he said.
”We would like to reiterate that the fight against poverty is an historic task that this government is tackling with the participation of millions of South Africans and at no stage should anyone pretend that the poverty that our people are facing will be eradicated overnight.
”Our goal, in line with the globally agreed Millennium Development Goals, is to halve poverty and unemployment by 2014. This government is unwavering in its commitment to ensure that these targets are met,” Maseko said.
‘Grossly repugnant’
Last Friday, Mbeki said in his weekly online newsletter that 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”.
”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 was determined to ensure that especially the organised working class developed ”an understanding of our real and objective situation that bears no relationship to the truth”.
Mbeki said that 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, Mbeki said
”The standard of living of the masses of our people is improving significantly; however, we must accelerate our advance in this regard. — Sapa