*NUMSA STATEMENT ON **FEBRUARY 2 1990**: POLITICAL EVENTS!* * *
*01 February 2010*** The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) joins the people of South Africa and the liberation movement led by the ANC and the vanguard party of the working class – the SACP - in commemorating the 20thanniversary of their unbanning by the heinous and racist regime on February 2 1990. In the words of ANC President Oliver Reginald Kaizana Tambo: *“Last year, when we spoke to you on January 8th, we said that SWAPO of **Namibia** and the Patriotic Front of **Zimbabwe** had reached the very threshold of power. We said that power in our region was visibly changing hands and that the days of the racists and their stooges were strictly numbered. The question how many days the racists and their stooges had in our region is today being answered practically in **Zimbabwe**”* (ANC NEC January 8 Statement, 1980). To the workers and the poor, February 2 1990 was a poignant response to President Tambo’s words and also a watershed in the struggle for a non-racial, non-sexist and a democratic South Africa. The latter date should be reclaimed by the masses who brought the apartheid regime down to its knees. It was the battle of Cuito Cuanavale in Angola, the popular mass struggles led by the UDF, the isolation and sanctions imposed on apartheid South Africa by the international community, the infiltration and sabotage carried by the combatants of people’s army uMkhonto weSizwe, mass struggles waged at the point of production and centres of knowledge production, led by workers and students and the rejection of apartheid system by the great majority of our people, inspired by the victory of Swapo in Namibia. Numsa publicly dispels the notion by the bourgeois media, and those still obsessed with the past system, as personified by the DA, that the National Party and FW De Klerk played a role in the demise of apartheid. It was the masses, not the racist leaders, who brought the apartheid regime to an end. It was Chris Hani’s shed blood that brought about April 27 1994, for our first democratic elections and Nelson Mandela’s ascendancy to the highest office in the land. The late apartheid reforms such as the Wiehman labour reforms, tricameral parliament and black local authorities were a response to the mass struggles against the system. These reforms were meant to save apartheid capitalism which was in crisis due to mass struggles. The continuous overemphasis by the bourgeois media and gutter ‘political analysts’ of the role of leaders, including FW De Klerk and his apartheid racist cabal, in bringing about social change in South Africa perpetuates the ‘great person’ theory of history, which emphasizes the role of leaders at the expense of masses. It is this kinds of history that Verwoerd’s Bantu education propagated in schools. The F.W. De Klerk fans and liberal media must not try to re-write our history to distort our national memory. The leadership and membership of Numsa salutes the role of our people’s organisations – the United Democratic Front, Congress of South African Trade Unions, South African Youth Congress, South African National Students Congress, Congress of South African Students, South African National Civic Organization, and heroes and heroines of our struggles such as Jabulile Ndlovu who died fighting side by side with other Afrikaner heroes against oppression and exploitation of the working class. In honour of these heroes and heroines who fought for a society based on human solidarity, we call on the South African government to ban and outlaw the use of labour brokers. We also call on the government to nationalise the SA Reserve Bank, in honour of Bettie du Toit, in recognition of her role in the fight against the exploitation from which white monopoly businesses, such as Anglo-American and its FNB, generated enormous profits. Anglo-American and other businesses did not only benefit from racism and sexism, but also denied people such as Bettie du Toit the right to realize their potentials in sports and recreation because they had to spend their time in the fight against exploitation and oppression. February 2 2010 is the 20th anniversary of the unbanning of people’s organisations. 2010 marks the 55th anniversary of the adoption of the Freedom Charter and the beginning of a new decade. The workers and the poor should reclaim and make sure that the Freedom Charter is at the centre of the ANC-led Alliance government as part of advancing the aspirations and mass expectations brought by the demise of apartheid and the racist regime. Numsa will intensify its efforts to realise our battle call for One Sector, One Union, One Country, One Federation, by mobilising the white working class within the our ranks and Cosatu, in order to build on the human solidarity foundations laid by Jack Simons, and eradicate De Klerk’s racist and sexist legacy that continues to afflict different spheres of our lives. Our continued working relations with Solidarity are a giant step in this direction. Contact: *Castro Ngobese, National Spokesperson – 073 299 1595* -- 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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