ANC YOUTH LEAGUE MASS MOBILISATION AND ACTION PROGRAMME FOR OCTOBER 2011:
The ANC Youth League extended National Working Committee met in Chief Albert Luthuli House, on Sunday the 18th of September 2011 to amongst other things adopt a concrete programme mandated by the ANC YL 1st NEC/NWC which said on the 18th of August 2011 that, "The youth league will roll out mass action throughout the country on free education, youth unemployment and on economic freedom in our life time".
In giving practical meaning to this programme, the 18th September 2011 NWC agreed on the dates of 27 AND 28 OCTOBER 2011, as the official dates to roll our mass action to strategic centres of power in South Africa. On the 27th of October 2011, the ANC Youth League will lead mass action and protests to the Chamber of Mines to amongst other things demand Nationalisation of Mines and equal share in the country's mineral resources.
From the Chamber of Mines, the ANC Youth league will lead mass action to the Johannesburg Stock Exchange in Sandton to demand equal share in the country's wealth, faster transformation of the economy and most importantly, jobs for the unemployed youth. From the JSE in Sandton, the mass action will go to the Union Buildings for a Night Vigil, which will culminate in the handing over of a memorandum to the Executive demanding free education, immediate abolishment of labour brokers, jobs for youth, better housing and sanitation for informal settlement dwellers and access to water.
The ANC Youth League takes this approach of mass mobilisation because of our strong conviction that the betterment of the people of South Africa's lives will not happen in boardrooms and through some endless negotiations with Capital. It is high time that we mobilise all South Africa's youth and progressive forces to demand jobs and equal share of South Africa's wealth from big business and corporations who are benefiting at the expense and to the exclusion of the historically disadvantaged.
In doing so, the ANC Youth League appreciates the reality that we should also demand free quality education, proper houses and sanitation, electricity and water from the South African government. We therefore take an approach of mobilising the whole of society to collectively express the urgency of meeting basic needs for majority of the disadvantaged people.
Between now and the 27 AND 28 OCTOBER 2011, the ANC Youth League will be meeting with all fraternal organisations to persuade them to join the National Days of Mass Action, and actively mobilise the following sectors of South African society:
- Unemployed youth.
- Underprivileged students.
- Under employed youth i.e. waiters/waitresses, petrol attendants, farm workers, receptionists, etc.
- Squatter camps dwellers.
- All communities that were affected by service delivery protests.
- Landless people.
- People without water and electricity.
All branches of the ANC Youth League, in all sub-regions, zones, regions, and provinces will be expected to mobilise these communities and ensure that they arrive in Johannesburg on the 27th of October 2011 for the beginning of the Mass Action. There will not be provincially based marches and protests, because all people should converge in Johannesburg for the mass action programme.
This serves as a clarion call to all economic freedom fighters that total liberation and emancipation of the oppressed and exploited people of South Africa will not only happen in boardrooms and conferences. The people should rise and demand what rightfully belongs to them. South Africa belongs to all who live in it-black and white, and the distribution of wealth should begin to reflect the reality that indeed South Africa belongs to all who live in it. It can never be correct that so many people continue to live in absolute poverty alongside South wealth derived from our natural resources and political power to determine their equitable allocation.
Statement issued by the ANC Youth League, September 21 2011
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