The role of the church is to heal our society from the atrocities of the wounds of our historical past.

This week a conglomerates of antagonistic class forces from the ranks of some of the leadership of our business and church sector opposed to the noble cause of the objectives of our national democratic revolution have once again mounted a blistering attack against the collective leadership of our movement and more particularly the democratically elected President of our movement and our Republic Cde Jacob Zuma. This coalition of forces have once again accused the leadership of our movement and our democratic government for the massive challenges of socio economic inequalities from our deep seated hostile historical past. They have joined the chorus of those who are opposed to the noble cause of our national democratic revolution. 

This unprincipled and inconsistent coalition of class forces from black business, church, pseudo intellectuals, opposition parties, together with international monopoly capital are threatening to mobilize our people, the motive forces of our national democratic revolution against their own national liberation movement. They want our people to hold our National liberation movement and its leadership, particularly our own President, responsible for the atrocities and the pandemic contradictions of poverty, disease and underdevelopment arising out of the centuries of oppression and exploitation by imperialism and apartheid colonial domination.

This ferocious onslaught against our movement and its collective leadership is mounted few days just before the commencement of the proceedings of our elective national conference. The political significance of the Mangaung conference is that it heralds the end and the beginning of our struggles for the liberation of our country into the new century. This unbroken record absolves the ANC as the genuine representative of the wishes and aspirations of the people of our country.

The most painful episode to witness is the growing phenomenon that some of our church leaders are collaborating with the forces historically opposed to the strategic objectives of our national democratic revolution to reverse back the gains of our revolution. It is indeed worrisome that some of the leadership of our church can join the chorus of the enemies of our democracy to undermine the tremendous achievements the south African working class have attained in the past eighteen years of our democratic dispensation. 

Throughout the history of our struggles for the liberation of our people the church has always constituted part of the progressive movement to dismantle the racist apartheid regime and therefore the creation of a foundation for the better future of our people. We therefore hope that the church will still contribute meaningfully during this difficult period of the transition from the apartheid regime to our new democratic future. Our understanding is that we are all committing ourselves to this noble cause mindful of the realities that it will not be an easy task to reconstruct our country from the shackles of the apartheid foundations.

The younger generation of today will always appreciate the significant role the church has contributed in our struggles against apartheid colonial oppression and exploitation. We are proud that it has always shared our theoretical perspective that the eradication of the apartheid colonial oppression and domination was a precondition for the freedom and dignity of our people. Its historic role has always been to contribute meaningfully to the process of nation building and formation.

We have always assumed that the church comprehend the historic character of our national liberation struggles. Together with our people it has always understood that the strategic objective of our national democratic revolution is the liberation of the black people in general and the Africans in particular from the bondage of imperialism and colonialism of a special type. That the immediate tasks of our national democratic revolution is the construction of a non racial, non sexist, democratic and prosperous society. 

It is from this point of view that we are horrified by the complete distortions and misrepresentation of facts by some of the leaders of our church about the concrete objective realities confronting our society at the present conjectural period of our transition. It is indeed an act tantamount to counter revolution for some of the church leaders to drive a wedge between the church and our national liberation movement and therefore inflicting wounds of divisions in our society. 

Events of history will prove those amongst our church leaders wrong for having involved themselves in counter revolutionary activities aimed at reversing the tremendous gains and the achievements of the unity and cohesion of our liberation movement and our revolution. It is actually an act in consistent to the culture and traditions of the south african society for the calibre of the church leaders who authored the letter join the chorus of the siren songs of the enemy of our revolution to undermine the collective effort of our national democratic revolution.

The essence of the divorce letter from the church is to cast aspersions on the capability of the collective leadership of our movement and our government under the leadership of President Jacob Zuma to steer forward the revolutionary process for the radical transformation of the socio economic landscapes of our society. They have joined the chorus of the siren songs of the former colonial powers depicting a false impression that the former oppressed people of the colonies cannot lead themselves as the architects of the own future. 

It is for this obvious reason that some of the leadership of the church for their own selfish reasons have entangled themselves and therefore the entire church community into the perceived leadership wrangles and the internal democratic processes of the ANC as we knock at the doorsteps of the historic venue of our elective national conference. We thought that these group of church leaders will comprehend the historical analysis that imperialism and neo-colonialism will never forgive the sins committed by our movement and its leaders for having led the struggles of our people for their emancipation.

Dialectical materialism teaches us that for the qualitative revolutionary process to rapture the new has to born out of the old. In other words we are facing this difficult circumstances of our transition because the new is born out of the old.For a revolutionary process to occur the subjective factors have to supersede the objective factors. In other words the level of the conscieness of our people must be able to render the apparatus of the former oppressive state ungovernable and the former oppressive state must cease to have the capacity to unleash its apparatus to oppress the people and therefore maintain the status quo. 

The essence of our dialectical thesis is that the collective effort of all forces for the qualitative change of the productive mode of our economy should be able usher themselves through this passage of power from our transition of the apartheid regime to the new democratic dispensation. For our national democratic revolution to take one step forward the motive forces of our revolution should be able to triumph over the forces of reaction determined to derail our noble cause of our national democratic revolution. One step forward two steps backward. 

All what we want to emphasize is that the task of our church in the current phase of our transition is to heal our society from the wounds of the atrocities of our historical past. Its moral obligation is to harness the unity and cohesion of our people and our National democratic revolution. That it will be against the moral values of our society for any leader of any church to spearhead attempts to drive our people into the trappings of impartiality. Therefore the mammoth task confronting our church is to build on the foundations of the moral fabric of our society.

It is from this perspective that delegates representing our branches at our historic elective conference in Mangaung extrapolate the hostile balance of forces our movement and the people of our country find themselves having to traverse and therefore the cause and the effect of the continuous attempts by the antagonistic forces to demonize our movement and its leadership. In the history of our struggles imperialism has always rejected the collective efforts of the leadership of our movement and it will continue to do so. 

The day in which imperialism sings the songs of praise to our movement and its leadership it will be a signal that our national democratic revolution is no more on the right cause. Therefore our President is the scape goat of the vicious agenda of the former colonial powers to undermine our noble cause of improving the living conditions of the south African working class. 

Our delegates should be awake to the fact that Mangaung is not just an ordinary conference but an ideological battle ground we have to wage against our class enemies. Our national democratic revolution is the highest form of class struggles to resolve the contradictions of our national, class and gender questions. Manguang is the ultimate battle under the hostile circumstances to restore the character and posture of our national liberation movement and equally the arena to restore the true values, culture and traditions that have over the years became synonymous to the noble objectives of our national democratic revolution.

Phatse Justice Piitso is the former ambassador of our country to Cuba and the former secretary of the SACP in Limpopo writing this article on his personal capacity. 

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