President Nelson Mandela was a product of the African National Congress Vhonani Masindi, Chairperson of SACP Linda Jabane District (Johannesburg), 30 July 2016 Referring to the situation that was similar to the one we are facing currently in South Africa where the reactionary DA is using the names of the former leaders of our revolutionary movement to attract voters to their side, Lenin had this to write: "During the lifetime of great revolutionaries, the oppressing classes constantly hounded them, received their theories with the most savage malice, the most furious hatred and the most unscrupulous campaigns of lies and slander. After their death, attempts are made to convert them into harmless icons..." (Lenin, 1917) When Nelson Mandela was still the president of this country, the Democratic Party (later called DA) made it their project to criticize and lambast Nelson Mandela and everything he stood for. Now that he is no longer with us, they do not only praise him, they also claim his legacy, which was not his individual legacy, by the way, but the legacy of the ANC as a movement. They portray our former President as someone who never participated in any struggle. In other words they lend him the character of a pacifist. Some among us argue that it is good for reactionary opposition parties to claim our former leaders and their legacies as this is an indication that they acknowledge our achievements. This argument is wrong because opposition parties understand the impact of claiming our leaders and their legacy the way they do. Lenin exposes the real reason behind these claims by DA when he went on to write: "... to canonize them, so to say, and to hallow their names to a certain extent for the 'consolation' of the oppressed classes and with the object of duping the latter, while at the same time robbing the revolutionary theory of its substance, blunting its revolutionary edge and vulgarizing it. For the 'consolation' of the oppressed classes and with the object of duping the latter, while at the same time robbing the revolutionary theory of its substance, blunting its revolutionary edge and vulgarizing it." (Lenin, 1917) The DA does this to appease the oppressed people of South Africa, hoping to render them ignorant of the real history behind the names of these leaders; which works well for the DA, because once people forget about where they are coming from, they can be easily swayed by directionless wind. Should we allow this to happen we will not be able to drive our NDR to its logical conclusion. To those who believe that the DA really loves President Mandela, the question I pose to them is how can DA love our former President so much and hate the ANC with passion? President Nelson Mandela was the product of African National Congress and at the same time he contributed immensely in shaping the ANC as the National Liberation Movement. In my language we say: "U si vhenge dongo was funa vowa". I appeal to all comrades who claim to be serious about the revolution to commit to political education in all structures of our movement and its alliance partners so that we conscientize our members of the dangers that come with forces of counter-revolution claiming our leaders and their legacy, when they have already passed away. Let us all join forces in publicly exposing DA for what it is! Amandla! __________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 13882 (20160729) __________ The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus. http://www.eset.com -- -- 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]. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum. To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/yclsa-eom-forum/003001d1ea36%2485f42a80%2491dc7f80%24%40com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
