Dear Maqabane
In light of all arguments currently, in the political spectrum of nationalization of mines, leadership contests, does and don’ts of ministers, etc, there is a central matter, deliberately forget; which is the education in South Africa. *If education is solved, then we would have solved half of the challenges the country it’s faced with [Zuma 2009].* Once more the ANC and the Alliance partners have committed in this source of life. However the fundamental question is, until when we shall entertain this lip-service? We are going to a SASCO National Congress shortly, which inter alia requires us students to be honest about the state of education and its future. We must accept that the education landscape of South Africa in past 15 years has been characterized inter alia, by mergers of technikons to be universities of technologies, increase of tuition fees like BEE companies, racism amongst students, do away of OBE, silent death of COSAS, further divisions of education ministries, etc. However, few people have audaciously confronted such issues with sincerity. Perhaps it’s not something that directly smuggles hard cash in their pockets, reminiscent of fighting over about mine control, municipality councils, etc. This clearly shows that South Africans do not have a full clear interest and detailed plan of resolving inequalities and inaccessibility of education and crafting of an education system with modules driving the *national democratic revolution*of liberating the South African working class, blacks in particular and Africans’ in general. * * Our form of education should be passions that as young people, student activists, civil society, etc; we should be pre-occupied with at all times. The above debates are arguments that should be raised at upcoming National, Provincial and Regional Conferences, not petty issues of populists’ sentiments, etc. *“Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past[I]<http://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&view=js&name=js&ver=ZZ4KpTfy1bY.en.&am=!Iec9iPCj39i5BXHC0fIucsP8-ca4xltahQvEtWFEYfFrew#_ftn1>”. * We are slowly escaping the financial recession, so we need to make sure that our education should not be something that compromises the majority of people over the minority due to capital shortages. We must utilize education to enfranchise our people from capitalist exploitation and opportunitism of careerists with no significant interest of the poor. The education of our people should be able to teach our children that individual human beings do not belong to themselves, but to society and to human race. This education will make possible for our society to train the coming generations most successfully, at low cost and with the least expenditure of energy[II]<http://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&view=js&name=js&ver=ZZ4KpTfy1bY.en.&am=!Iec9iPCj39i5BXHC0fIucsP8-ca4xltahQvEtWFEYfFrew#_ftn2> . We then need an education revolution that will require a radically mobilized youth formations such as the South African Students Congress (SASCO), with traditional and organic intellectuals to advance and lead such a revolution. Progressively enough, SASCO’s Strategic Perspective on Transformation (SPOT) of higher education adopted at the fourth annual Congress, inter alia noted the elitist education discourse that unfolded throughout in campuses[III]<http://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&view=js&name=js&ver=ZZ4KpTfy1bY.en.&am=!Iec9iPCj39i5BXHC0fIucsP8-ca4xltahQvEtWFEYfFrew#_ftn3>. SASCO should advance first a national self-determination education that will ensure South Africa is able enough to determine its own development path, free of external manipulation or domination by capitalism. Furthermore this is in line with SASCO’s objective in its sector; that together with entire movement, it will create developmental state that primarily seeks to advance the interest of the poor. As the youth of today, like the one of 1976, we should be the first to make sacrifices demanded by the revolution and be the first to work hard and study as well. In that way we will then be able to make the realization of working class dictatorship. Ours should promote recreational and cultural activities that will be meaningful to us. In pursuit of our education, young people will advance for an education and a country that develops moral convictions in young people. Sonke, we must educate each other that education is ayoba. *Without revolutionary theory, there can be no revolutionary movement. This idea cannot be insisted upon too strongly at a time when the fashionable preaching of opportunism goes hand in hand with an infatuation for the narrowest forms of practical activity[IV]<http://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&view=js&name=js&ver=ZZ4KpTfy1bY.en.&am=!Iec9iPCj39i5BXHC0fIucsP8-ca4xltahQvEtWFEYfFrew#_ftn4> ”.*(Vladimir Ilyich Lenin in “*What Is To Be Done? Burning Question of our Movement*”, 1902) This education system will make young people be useful to the contribution of South African Socialism and to the developmental state envisaged by Africa, not by Caucasians or capitalists and the western world. “The total liberation of Africa will come from the South”. Kwame Nkrumah. The education must be a fundamental aspect that pre-occupies our minds in South Africa, beyond all other issues. Let’s engage these views before we engage on contemporary ideological orientation of student movements and other fashionable statements. A’skulumeni, Cde Sive (in his personal capacity) ------------------------------ [I]<http://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&view=js&name=js&ver=ZZ4KpTfy1bY.en.&am=!Iec9iPCj39i5BXHC0fIucsP8-ca4xltahQvEtWFEYfFrew#_ftnref1>The eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon: 1852 [II]<http://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&view=js&name=js&ver=ZZ4KpTfy1bY.en.&am=!Iec9iPCj39i5BXHC0fIucsP8-ca4xltahQvEtWFEYfFrew#_ftnref2>N.I Bukharin and E. Preobrazhensky: ABC of Communism [III]<http://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&view=js&name=js&ver=ZZ4KpTfy1bY.en.&am=!Iec9iPCj39i5BXHC0fIucsP8-ca4xltahQvEtWFEYfFrew#_ftnref3>SASCO SPOT Document of 4 th Annual Congress [IV]<http://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&view=js&name=js&ver=ZZ4KpTfy1bY.en.&am=!Iec9iPCj39i5BXHC0fIucsP8-ca4xltahQvEtWFEYfFrew#_ftnref4>Vladimir Ilyich Lenin: What is to be done? Burning Question of our Movement, 1902 -- Sive "Madala" Gumenge Young Communist League of South Africa Deputy Secretary of Brian Bunting District Western Cape 076 894 5800 -- 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. 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