I think there are mistakes here, comrade Senzo, having to do in the first place with mass and vanguard. We as communists, being a vanguard organisation of professional revolutionaries with a mission to organise, educate and mobilise, strive to assist all self-conscious masses of people to organise themselves.
This includes the organisation of women, in women's mass organisations. The question is not: "Why does the Party not have a Women's Section?" but is rather: "Why has the Party not managed to assist the organisation of an autonomous mass national women's movement?" In the past this was done by establishing the Federation of South African Women (FEDSAW) in 1954, under the leadership of Dora Tamana, Ray Alexander and others. The founding congress of FEDSAW passed the Women's Charter, preceding the Freedom Charter by one year. Unfortunately, the ANC, which is a mass organisation (liberation movement), wants to treat the women as a "wing". This has been a problem from the 1950s onwards. The ANC Women's League, although it is national in extent, is not a women's organisation as such. Rather, it is an ANC for women. Worse, the ANCWL is jealous of other national women's formations, as it was with FEDSAW and later with the UDF and then the Women's National Coalition, all of which were destroyed. The present Progressive Women's Movement is no more than the ANCWL in another guise (whether by wearing a T-shirt or an evening dress). The above argument is developed and backed up with documents, in the series "No Woman, No Revolution". *Click here to access the whole set* <http://groups-beta.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum/web/no-woman-no-revolution-console> on this very YCLSA Discussion Forum site, Yours in struggle, VC 2009/9/22 <[email protected]> > > Salute Comrades, > > I know there are many issues of interest to cadres at the moment, some of > those is the ongoing 10th Congress of Cosatu, SACP's discussion documents, > and so forth. But I had faced a challenge while I was addressing in one of > the forums. After we shared political discussion, one cadre asked a > question to me. He said why the SACP as an independent political party > does not have a Women's League. This question emanated when we had > explained structures of the ANC and emphasis of the primary objectives of > the National Democratic Revolution which are to construct a united society > which is non racial, non sexist, democratic and prosperious. The > understanding is that the ANCYL & WL were formed in order to allow full > attention to the critical challenges facing women and youth. At the same > time the SACP as a venguard of the working class and the poor does have a > YCL representing the youth who are communists in terms of ideology but it > doesn't have a women's structure. > > I said to comrades, the SACP is not a broad church like the ANC hence its > focus is to build a socialist state enroute Communism. By so doing the > SACP build a revolutionary intelligentsia who is schooled the teachings of > socialism and communism, yet advocating for the victory of the NDR. In > pursuit of its objective, the SACP doesn't necessarily need to establish a > separate gender forums however believes that women had faced multiple > challenges and indeed suffered discrimination of both class and gender. In > pursuit of class struggle, the SACP would have addressed all challenges > facing the women. The formation of YCL is to sure case that communism is a > future and by teaching the youth, you save the nation. > > The clarity I actually need from fellow cadres in this forum is really to > find out the political reason for the Party not to have in its structures > a Women's forum. And to check if the explanation I gave to my comrades was > informed or a true response of that question. > > > ------------------------------------------- > South Africas premier free email service - www.webmail.co.za > ------------------------------------------------------------------ > For super low premiums, click here http://home.webmail.co.za/dd.pwm > > > > > -- Blog at: http://domza.blogspot.com/ Communist University web site at: http://amadlandawonye.wikispaces.com/ Subscribe for free e-mail updates at: http://groups.google.com/group/Communist-University/ Library of documents (CU "CD") at: http://cu.domza.net/ [email protected] --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] . -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
