Our immediate task is to ensure the overwhelming victory of the ANC in the forthcoming national general elections.

Different political parties across our country are gearing themselves for the national general elections to be held next year. The national general elections will also coincide with the 20th anniversary celebrations of the achievements of our democratic government. 

Our elections are taking place against the background of the most hostile and aggressive international balance of forces. There is a world wide counter revolutionary strategy to undermine the leadership of national liberation movements who led victories of the struggles of our people in the former colonies and semi colonies. 

Imperialism and neo colonial forces have even determined a framework of a twenty years period as a barometer to measure the fate of democratic governments led by national liberation movements in the former colonies and semi colonies. The reason why the coalition of forces opposed to the transformation of our country is throwing tantrums that the ANC led government has nothing to show after twenty years in power.

In our country the Democratic Alliance in collaboration with both the domestic white monopoly capital and international monopoly capital, is at an offensive to undermine the tremendous socio economic achievements gained by the ANC led government. What they can not explain are the measuring tools they are employing as a yardstick to evaluate the work of our national democratic revolution.

The momentum for the elections is taking place against the background of the growing perceptions of corruption under the leadership of the ANC led government. All the forces of counter revolution have converged around this as the core message for their elections campaign. 

They are spreading a propaganda based on the falsehood that corruption index has increased to 69 percent this year from 34 percent in 1994. The most important question we ask ourselves is whether indeed, corruption under the auspices of the ANC led government, has skyrocketed tenfolds more than during the three and half centuries of the preceding colonial governments. 

Without fear of any contradictions, the achievements of our government during the past eighteen years of our democratic dispensation far surpass the achievements of the successive colonial governments in the past three and half centuries. There were even no systems at all to measure the performance of those who were in positions of responsibility.

Therefore the futile attempts to use the Apartheid colonialism as a barometer to measure the achievements of our revolutionary government, is an insult to the overwhelming majority of the people of our country.  No amount of fundamental violations of human rights and atrocities was ever recorded in the history of the struggles of mankind, than during the three and half centuries of imperialism and colonial oppression and exploitation in our country.  

Historical records confirm Apartheid to have been the highest form of corrupt government ever in the history of the evolution and development of society. Even the whole world under the United Nations General assembly unanimously declared the racist apartheid system as the most heinous crime ever against humanity.

The pandemic socio economic conditions confronting our democratic government and our people today, emanate from the harsh realities of the centuries of colonial oppression and exploitation. It was an official policy of the oppressive racist governments, to exclude the black people in general and the African people in particular, from the commanding heights of our socio economic mainstream. 

The architecture of the Apartheid regime was designed in such a way to deny our people with access to essential services such as water, electricity, health, education, housing, road infrastructure and job opportunities. The reason why they will oppose any decisive intervention by our democratic government to improve the living conditions of our people.

We therefore need to prepare our young generation to be able to face the growing onslaught that seek to present a false perception that the ANC led government, is responsible for the harsh socio economic realities confronting our people. The essence of this onslaught is to undermine the scientific logic that the development of society is embedded on the lessons and the experiences of the past. 

The posture of counter revolution in this instance is to elevate the application of common sense at the expense of scientific realities of our concrete material world.  The thrust is to distort the true historical facts about the struggles of our people against imperialism and colonial domination.

The importance of this question rest on our understanding that society is shaped by the best of its ideas. Therefore our task is to defeat the tendency that seek to perpetuate a false view that in our march into the future, we must forget about our past. 

The tendency seeks to cultivate a wrong mindset to our young generation that there is no need to ask questions about the cause of the massive racial inequalities rampant in our society. That there is no need for our generation to ask questions as to why most of the most developed and fertile lands only belong to the majority of the white population in our country.

A mindset that seeks to mislead the young generation of our society that there is no need for them to understand why the socio economic ownership patterns of our country has assumed a racial posture. That there is no need to know the reasons for the poor state of our education, health, housing and many other essential services such as water and electricity.

Failure to counterpose these counter revolutionary tactics will have a far reaching consequences to the future of the people of our country. It will be at the detriment of our society to give space to abstract dominant ideas whose theoretical foundations are based on falsehood that we can reach our better tomorrow without our today. 

Our people must be able to separate the truth from falsehood. Although that our national democratic revolution is faced by many challenges, the ANC led government has achieved a tremendous progress to improve the living conditions of the people of our country.

Phatse Justice Piitso is the former Ambassador to the republic of Cuba and the former provincial secretary of the SACP writing this article on his personal capacity.

Click here to sign up to receive our free daily headline email newsletter