It is hope that you do not use "unhelpful" as a euphemism for "different from my view".
I am glad that you acknowledge that ". Even to date almost a week, Andile has not publicly refuted the claims or reports by the media on what he hasn't said.". It is common courtesy to afford people, let alone comrades, the right of response, before we issue out statements in condemnation. In my response I was not only trying to respond to your input, but as well engage the statements the aforementioned statements and comments. The comments sought to brandish as pariahs and inter alia to be in opposition to the working class; all those who to challenge and bring up for discussion issues on the authority of the trade union. The problem with this premise is that it can reduce , important as it, trade unionism to be that of the vanguard party of the working class. Joe Slovo (SACP. 1986 Errors of Workerism and The South African Working Class and the National Democratic Revolution) and some contemporary Marxists like Ernest Mandel (1993 Vanguard Parties) and David North, an American Trotskist (1999 Marxism and Trade Unions) have contributed thir thoughts to this important discussion on the role and significance of trade unions within the context of a socialist struggle lead by a vanguard party. It is important that we acknowledge that the trade unions have a large working class membership is undoubtedly true, that also being the case in South Africa. However unions are unique in this task of organising the working class, so do other organisation, especially in a modern economy. In Errors of Workerism party acknowledges the fact the role of trade unions as ".It is often within trade unions that workers begin to learn of their collective strength as a class. The trade union struggles enable workers to understand more clearly that their interests and those of the bosses are fundamentally opposed. In democratic trade unions, hundreds of thousands of South African workers get organizational training. They take part in discussions, elections, mandating and representing. The trade unions are a great school of struggle for workers. It is in the interest of the UDF and whole national democratic struggle in South Africa that the maximum number of workers is organized into democratic, national, industrial trade unions. The trade unions are also more than just a school of struggle. They are in their own right, powerful weapons, enabling workers to strike heavy blows against the bosses and against the whole apartheid system." It should be acknowledged that trade unions have limitations. The first aim of a trade union is to organize the maximum number of workers in a factory, and eventually within an industry. Important as the economic struggle is between the workers and bosses at the point of production, the work of unions can never be reduced to the class struggle. This can lead to an incorrect outlook where we mistaken the trade union movement as the main political representative of the working class. There it must be emphasised that interests of organised workers can never take interest above those of the working class as a whole. A vanguard party, like ours is only such because it leads in action not only organised workers, non-unionised workers (in informal sector of the economy), small traders, poor peasants, the unemployed, revolutionary youth, revolutionary students, revolutionary women, revolutionary oppressed nationalities who recognizes it as their vanguard party, and as such should be able to unite the often different sects behind one common programme to achieve a classless society. A vanguard party has to be constructed, has to be built through a long process. You cannot have a vanguard party which has no following in the class. If we have women militants engaged only in feminist struggles, if we have youth militants engaged only in youth struggles, if we have students engaged only in student struggles, if we have immigrant workers engaged only in immigrant worker struggles, if we have oppressed nationalities engaged only in oppressed nationalities' struggles, if we have unemployed engaged only in unemployed struggles, if we have trade unionists engaged only in trade union struggles, if we have unorganized, un-unionized, essentially unskilled workers engaged only in their own struggles and if each of them operates separately from each other they only see part of the whole picture. The conclusions which they come up with will be, you can say a priori, at least partially wrong. They cannot have an overall, total correct view of reality because they see only a fragmented part of that reality. Here, again, we see a tremendous danger for the working class and the labour movement if there is no such centralization of experience: this is the danger of sectorialisation and fragmentation, which does not enable anyone to draw adequate conclusions for action. Ernest Mandel shares advices that "Our stance for working class democracy, for socialist democracy, for socialist pluralism, is based on a programmatic understanding that there are no contradictions between the interests of communists, vanguard militants, the working class, and the labor movement in its totality. There are no conditions in which we subordinate the interests of the class as a whole to the interests of any sect, any chapel, any separate organization. It is out of a theoretical understanding of that truth that we can fight enthusiastically, that we can fight with devotion and with deep understanding for the workers' united front, for a policy of unification of all different tendencies of the labor movement and the working class for common goals, because we believe that the victory of socialism is impossible without the victory of the fight for these common goals." So when you say "Again you must appreciate the fact that the then state in the soviet union was a workers state, not a bourgeois state like it is in our case." This statement is silly since if I had mentioned Chile, Japan, The Philippines, Peru or Argentina as countries where have declared teaching as an essential service, you have responded with saying but those are "bourgeois states". I am also, tempted to refer to the old discussion on whether or not to nationalisation. Noting that nationalisation, or banning industrial action in the education, as debate proposed is not inherently progressive based on the name alone. No policy intervention is inherently progressive or reactionary simply on the name alone, as Shakespeare puts its "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet". The point I make, is that even if the comments were indeed true, it does not wise that we NOT engage the merits of the arguments, from a Marxist perspective of course. -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of [email protected] Sent: 25 January 2012 02:36 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [YCLSA Discussion] Your comment Sandile, is just unhelpful, in fact what I find is that for your own reasons u just chose to defend the ANCYL or comrade Andile or both. Nevertheless let me state the following, that, 1. Even to date almost a week, Andile has not publicly refuted the claims or reports by the media on what he hasn't said which makes us to logically conclude that he really made these claims & he therefore abides by them so all the organizations that I mentioned to have issued responses in this regard would not have crawled to Andile to solicit his side of the story as you are suggesting. 2. Given the sensitivity of these statements, the ANCYL should have been courageous & acted promptly by taking a position publicly regarding Andile's statements. 3. You are suggesting that we engage on the teachers rights & so on, again in the spirit of this contribution what I find is that you are insinuating an old mantra of a so called labor market flexibility as led by the right wing formations such as the DA. Lastly the rights of the organized workers & their struggles including teachers & unions generally are as important as those of the working class as a whole because they too are opposed to the capitalist relations of production albeit their narrow approach which is why there is often a need for working class organizations or communist party organizations to guide & lead the organized workers. Again you must appreciate the fact that the then state in the soviet union was a workers state, not a bourgeois state like it is in our case. I maintain my position! Sent from my BlackBerryR wireless device -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] Sender: [email protected] Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 11:02:46 To: <[email protected]> Reply-To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [YCLSA Discussion] Let me start of by stating that the statement made by the Chairperson of the NYDA are at worst unacceptable and at best regrettable, provided the reports are true. The statements issued by the mentioned organizations and most responses to this thread challenge the capacity in which the comments were made as well as the merits of the comments. It is rather unfortunate that fully cognisant of that mischievous agenda of South African media that the sensationalist headline that ushered in these report, that sort to marry the alleged comments made by the national chairperson to that of the DA, did not raise an eyebrow. I sincerely doubt if all those that released volley after volley of statements ever bothered to call and engage the Chairperson, who is deployed by us, to understand firstly the validity and secondly the context under which the statement was made. It is also unnecessary for the ANCYL to issue out a statement on the comments made by Andile Lungisa, before affording him an opportunity to clarify his position to the leadership and to South Africans at large. Assuming that his comments are true, the National Chairperson cannot be decreed as an "unconscious reactionary". Let us, resisting dogma and name calling try to engage the merits of his comments (provided they are true) and perhaps use this as an opportunity to start a debate on the rights of teachers (a small professional class of workers who provide an invaluable service to our people) to associate, organize, bargain and regrettably embark on industrial action often at the detriment of millions working class boy and girl children. As communists, we must guard against narrow often reactionary workerism and syndicalism, wherein the interests of workers supersede those of the working class. As an example, trade unions including teacher unions, while they existed in the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China, they never enjoyed right to embark on industrial action. The Chairperson, must do the right thing and call a media briefing to clarify his position. That said, let a thousand flowers bloom. -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] Sender: [email protected] Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 09:42:19 To: <[email protected]> Reply-To: [email protected] Subject: [YCLSA Discussion] Statements have been issued flowing from SASCO, Cosatu, Sadtu & YCLSA disapproving utterances made publicly by the chairperson of the NYDA comrade Andile Lungisa in his scathing attack of the teacher unions for some of the challenges that Basic Education is faced with. What I find amiss & disturbing is that my other organization the ANCYL, a role player in the terrain of education, an organization which also declared itself as a "vanguard of the working-class" fails to defend the organized working-class in the form of teachers when the latter is under attack . So the silence of the ANCYL in this regard may only be interpreted as approving & sharing the reactionary views as expressed by its deployee comrade Andile. I remain!! Sent from my BlackBerryR wireless device -- 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] . -- 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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