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Media Statement, 6 January, 2015 NEHAWU Remembers Joe Slovo Cde Joe Slovo taught us that the revolution cannot be advanced in just one single corner but it should be fought in all terrains of struggle NEHAWU joins millions of South Africans and progressives around the world, to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the passing away of the former General Secretary of the South African Communist Party (SACP), Comrade Joe Slovo, one of our country's foremost revolutionary thinkers. To honour this African revolutionary, theoretician and Umkhonto Wesizwe leader, we call on the workers to reflect on the current state of our nation and summon from the grave his revolutionary wisdom and spirit in responding to the current challenges and in mapping a socialist future for the country. The working class in general should unite and take time to reflect on the state of our revolution and diligently work to build a firm foundation for a future socialist and ultimately communist society. The ultimate priority for all progressives at this point in time is to come up with concrete and practical programmes to help bring about the necessary fundamental transformation in the second phase. Our ultimate goal and priority should be to liberate the working class especially blacks from economic bondage, so that they can also enjoy the fruits of democracy. We are happy that there is already convergence within the ANC-led Alliance around the need for fundamental transformation in the second phase. Unfortunately, this day of remembrance in honour of Cde Joe Slovo comes at a time when the organised workers' component of the working class, COSATU, is self-flagellating and is organisationally and politically weakened. There are loud calls internally for the federation to consider leaving the ANC-led alliance in pursuit of ideological purity, while allowing other class forces to shape the future of the country. This question of ideological "puritanism" was addressed by Cde Joe Slovo in his pamphlet "The South African Working Class and the National Democratic Revolution". He wrote: "Class struggle does not fade into the background when workers forge alliances with other class forces on commonly agreed minimum programmes. The history of all struggles consists mainly of such interim phases. What is the essence of conflict during such phases if not class struggle? There is no such thing as 'pure' class struggle and those who seek it can only do so from the isolating comfort of a library arm-chair". Lenin also dismissed the idea of 'pure' class struggle in his Collected Works, when he wrote: "Whoever expects a "pure" social revolution will never live to see it. Such a person pays lip-service to revolution without understanding what revolution is". The December 2014 Central Executive Committee meeting of NEHAWU in its political reflections last year concluded that , "a united force of class-conscious organised workers cannot afford the luxury of isolating itself by standing on a self-indulgent high moral ground, merely satisfied with militant-sounding slogans and ideological purity". The meeting reflected that the material conditions of this conjuncture indicate that, the workers cannot escape the heavy duty of building working class power in the work place, communities and all other strategic centres of power including the ANC. In honour of Cde Slovo, workers should dedicate themselves to fighting divisions and disunity amongst their organisations and in their federation. As workers, we will continue to celebrate the life and teachings of this revolutionary and we will forever be inspired by his modesty and discipline. We owe it to him and many others to ensure that our NDR deepens uninterruptedly towards socialism. Issued by: NEHAWU Secretariat Office For further information, please contact: Sizwe Pamla, NEHAWU Media Liaison Officer, 011 833 2902 / 082 558 5962 Email: <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected] Visit NEHAWU website: <http://www.nehawu.org.za/> www.nehawu.org.za -- -- 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 received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "YCLSA Discussion Forum" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
