UmsebenziOnlineBig
Additional Notes during discussion at the
Mzala Nxumalo Memorial Lecture
Cape Peninsula University of Technology
By Cde Blade Nzimande, 13 February 2016
The #Fees must fall campaign (its internal contradictions and contradictory
character notwithstanding) is also not disconnected from the broader class
struggles in, and the capitalist nature of, the South African society.
Co-incidentally, the almost simultaneous struggles of the working class over
their pension funds and the current student struggles over access to higher
education, capture a deeper reality that is facing South Africa's working
class and lower middle classes.
South Africa's working class and the lower middle classes are deeply
indebted largely as a result of the absence, or inadequacy, of a social
wage, especially for the working class. It was to this matter for instance
that the Taylor Commission focused its attention upon, thus proposing a
comprehensive social security net.
The core of the working class (including nurses, teachers, police, factory
workers, etc.) does not benefit from the 'RDP' housing subsidy of
government. At the same time a large section of the working class and lower
middle class strata do not qualify for housing bonds from the private banks.
Even those who have access to such bonds are currently experiencing massive
bank repossessions and evictions. This has reached the same levels as during
the height of Group Areas Act evictions under apartheid!
Similarly, the same class strata do not benefit and often fall through the
cracks from the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) meant to
assist students from needy families. The majority of children from the
working class come from families that are above the NSFAS criteria, and yet
cannot afford to finance especially university education.
The working class and lower middle classes also suffer from the costs of the
absence of safe, reliable and affordable public transport. Many workers
spend up to 40% of their monthly income on (unsafe and unreliable) public
transport.
The absence of an affordable and quality health care system, for instance a
National Health Insurance, further places additional burden on these
families, thus erodes their income. A huge percentage of working class and
middle class families rely exclusively on the expensive private health care
system through their (inadequate and yet very costly) medical aid schemes.
On top of the above expenses, many workers and middle class professionals
have to look after unemployed or aged family members ("the black tax"),
which puts further strain on wage and salary earnings.
All the above are manifestations of the legacy of colonialism of a special
type, a variant of bourgeois rule that had been based, and continues to be
based, on deep levels of the black working class that suffer from a heavy
burden of this legacy.
Given the above, it is therefore also very important to understand student
struggles from the standpoint of the failure of capitalism to finance
(especially higher) education for the working class and the poor. For
example, the next possible bubble in the United States after the housing
bubble of 2008, is that of student debt, currently estimated at about $1.2
trillion US dollars.
Arising out of the misery of the 2008 capitalist crash, many families and
young people took loans for education with the hope that as the US picks up
from the 2008 crash they will be able to get better jobs. The creation of
better jobs is taking a long time, thus exacerbating student indebtedness
and inability to pay.
Without by any means abandoning the struggle for free higher education for
the working class and poor who cannot afford, it is however important to
understand that what we may be dealing with here is the state being asked to
bail out capitalism from its crisis, including its failure to fund (higher)
education for students from families that cannot afford.
For all these reasons it is important that we intensify our financial sector
campaign together with the struggle for a comprehensive social security net.
Much more importantly is for COSATU to earnestly take up the campaign of
where and how workers' pension and provident funds are invested.
People's education for people's power
The ANC 2016 January 8th statement appropriately declares the year 2016 as
the year of advancing people's power. This call is the most appropriate
especially coming in the wake of student struggles in higher education, the
deepening social distress in working class communities, as well as being the
year of the local government elections. Indeed the many challenges we face
call for the mobilisation of people's power, with the working class at the
centre. It is therefore important for the SACP and the working class as a
whole to ensure that this does not become just a slogan, but a reality
In fact the very corporate capture of the state that the SACP has strongly
come out against can only truly be reversed and defeated through the
mobilisation of people's power.
In our analyses of the student struggles at our last Central Committee in
2015 we noted a number of positive aspects of this campaign, amongst which
was its potential to politicise many students for the first time, as well as
putting pressure on our movement to implement its own resolutions.
However there are many negative aspects and other lessons to be learnt out
of these struggles. For example whilst internet based mobilisation can be a
powerful weapon, but the internet cannot provide leadership to such mass
struggles as shown by the collapse and defeat of a number of promising Arab
Spring struggles in North Africa and the Middle East.
The 2015 student struggles have taken place against the background of a
weakened ANC/SACP presence in our campuses, lack of unity and cohesion in
the Progressive Youth Alliance, as well as the absence of concrete
articulation of the perspectives of our movement on education, especially
the concept of 'people's education for people's power' and its further
elaboration after two decades of our democracy.
The participation and support to the student struggles by some of our own
comrades have more been about advancing their narrow factionalist interests
to attack the SACP and the working class rather than a principled support
for genuine student struggles and the transformation of higher education.
Therefore there has been very little theoretical and strategic guidance
given to our student formations along the lines of our strategic
perspectives of people's education for people's power.
It is absolutely essential for the SACP to play a leading role in the
concrete elaboration of our perspectives in order to guide these struggles
ideologically along the lines of driving the second, more radical phase of
our transition, with the broader perspectives of the national democratic
revolution.
It is also absolutely imperative that we strengthen Young Communist League
structures in our university and college campuses as well as building strong
SACP structures in these campuses and strengthen the Progressive Youth
Alliance.
It is important also for the SACP to extend and invite SASCO leadership and
cadres to its joint political schools, especially those with NEHAWU and
SADTU.
. Dr Blade Nzimande is SACP General Secretary, ANC NEC member and
Minister of Higher Education and Training
--
--
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.
