Comrade Brian Molefe belongs to the few of the most outstanding and finest young leaders our movement has ever produced

23 February 2017

Dear Comrade China Dodovu

A week ago the President of our country Cde Jacob Zuma delivered the state of the nation address during the join sitting of the national assembly and national council of provinces. It was probably his last address to the decorum of the join sitting of the two chambers of our legislative assembly as the President of the African National Congress.

The occasion of the join sitting took place against the background of one of the most important years in the calendar of the history of our struggle for liberation. The most important year ending a century of great epic events which have over the years shaped the coarse of the development of human society.

The political significance of the year 2017 is that it marks the centenary anniversary celebrations of the great October Socialist revolution. An earthmoving event which inaugurated the first socialist state in the history of mankind.

The great October Socialist revolution played a decisive role in the struggles of the oppressed nations of the world against imperialism and colonialism. The revolution liberated more than two thirds of the world population in the former colonies and semi colonies from subjugation of imperialism and colonialism.

The year is also the centenary of the birth of one of the most outstanding sons of the soil and a leader of our national liberation movement, President Oliver Reginald Tambo. The heroic and most illustrious revolutionary leader of our struggles and longest serving President of the African National Congress.

President OR Tambo belongs to a generation which transformed the ANC into a formidable contingent of the world revolutionary movement against the forces of oppression and exploitation. Its indomitable contribution saw the ANC becoming a towering force of the wider struggles for human solidarity and internationalism.

The generation of the heroic sons and daughters of our motherland was inspired by the momentum of the great October Socialist revolution to build a better world for humanity. Indeed his was a generation of the best students of our revolutionary scientific theory of Marxism Leninism.

It comprehended the important theoretical question that our struggles against apartheid colonialism was part of the wider struggles against imperialism and colonial domination. The art was that our struggle for freedom and equality was part of the entire struggles for the liberation of human society.

Of more importance was its understanding of the protracted nature of our struggles during this important period of our transition from capitalism to socialism. The most important theoretical question that the struggles by national liberation movements in the former colonies and semi colonies was part of the overall struggles to intensify the crisis of capitalism.

The strategic perspective was the understanding that the victories of the struggles of the oppressed nations in the world would inevitably shook the imperialism which is the foundation of capitalism. The overall perspective was the premise that the struggles against colonial oppression and exploitation was part of the wider struggles against capitalism.

The essence is that his was a generation of the most outstanding revolutionaries who distinguished themselves to be the true heirs of the culture and traditions of our national liberation struggles. His generation understood well that the ANC was not just a mere nationalist movement but a revolutionary liberation movement whose its historical mission is the creation of a better world for all of humanity.

My long sermon is a response to the hate letter you published vulgarizing the decision  to deploy Cde Brian Molefe as a representative of the ANC to the national assembly. I am sure that you know that as a member of the ANC in good standing, he has all the rights to serve the movement in all different capacities.

I want to tell you that Cde Brian is not just a citizen of our republic, but one of the finest young leaders our movement has ever produced. He is in the category of the rare spices who are the best to take forward the revolutionary programme of the second phase of our transition for radical transformation.

I can assure you that Cde Brian Molefe is a young living titan of our democratic republic, a young man who will always take courage in the face of danger. Therefore you cannot vanquish such an erstwhile young revolutionary leader of our liberation movement.

My biggest problem with your hate letter is that you are rising from a populist platform of tribalism and regionalism. You are reducing the revolutionary character of the ANC to the lowest ebb  of the artificial divide of the so called borders, rivers, mountains and the beautiful skies and oceans of our landscapes.

I thought that the state of the nation address opened your horizons about the real problems facing our national democratic revolution. Our task is to take our revolution to higher heights, to new heights of our struggles for radical transformation of our society.

We do not have a quarter of a space for those preaching the demon of tribalism and regionalism. We do not have time for backward and barbaric tendencies of tribalism and regionalism.

The best is to follow the wisdom of the great ancient philosophers which says that ideas are like the sun in a cloudless morning and that even if you can cut all flowers, you will not be able to stop the spring from coming. The message of your hate letter does not even surpass the expectation of the forces of counter revolution.

Even an ordinary man from the street can see that your obsession and hatred, if not jealousy, to the Premier of Northwest Cde Supra Mahumapelo, is the one driving you to always bark like a jackal at the moon for no reason. If I were you, I will wait, your time will come, respect the decision by the majority of the branches of the ANC and the people to have elected him as the leader of the province.

Today, more than ever before, we need revolutionaries who can provide a sober, frank and honest assessment of the state of our transition to democracy. We need those who can give a far reaching analysis of the balance of forces in our country and the world and the way they influence the pace and the direction of our national democratic revolution.

Your role as a leader of our movement is to take the young people of country through the complex theoretical question of the dialectical relationships between the base and the superstructure. The fundamental question which is at the core of our struggles for socio economic transformation of our society.

If you ever knew, the base relates to the dominant forces and their relationships to the means of production in society and the superstructure relates to the political and cultural institutions, such as the laws, schools, churches and all that reflect the power and hegemony of the dominant forces in society.

Make them understand that our base is still dominated by the apartheid colonial socio economic ownership patterns and that the architecture of our superstructure is still designed to serve the interest of the white minority and the international monopoly capital.

Your role as a leader is to teach them that our base is still the anchor of the white supremacy and the superstructure is still representing the culture and traditions imperialism and apartheid colonialism. This is the defining factor of the struggles of the second phase of our transition for the radical socio economic transformation of our society.

Our national democratic revolution is a true story of untold political and socio economic atrocities inflicted on our people by the former white minority regime. It is a true story of great sufferings by the majority of the people of our country.

White supremacy was systematically imposed on the political and socio economic life of the overwhelming majority of the people of our country. The black people in general and the Africans in particular.

The apartheid colonial state was destined to serve the interests of the white minority. The reason why the characteristic features of our economy are still rooted on white supremacy and socio economic domination.

Your role is to educate the young South Africans that the main strategy of the forces of counter revolution was to collapse the decorum of the of the join sitting of the national assembly during the state of the nation address. That right wing and left wing opportunism was demonstrating itself to be the true praise singers of imperialism .

That the characteristic of left wing and right wing opportunism is to serve the common master which is imperialism.  Therefore the mandate of the Economic Freedom Fighters and the Democratic Alliance is to undermine the historic mission of our national democratic revolution.

These forces have even given our liberation movement a timeframe of twenty years to resolve the socio economic contradictions imposed on our society over the centuries by imperialism and apartheid colonialism. The mission is to dictate on the pace and the direction of our struggles for the transformation of our country.

The unfolding events in our country is part of the worldwide efforts by imperialism to undermine revolutionary national liberation movements in the former colonies and semi colonies. It is part of the worldwide offensive to undermine our collective vision to build a better world for humanity.

Therefore the panorama of events taking place in our country requires maximum unity and cohesion of our revolutionary forces. We need discipline and common commitment to ensure that our movement continues to discharge its revolutionary duty as a vanguard of the struggles of our people.

You must be worried by the growing phenomenon within the ranks of our movement of revolutionaries elevating secondary contradictions at the expense of primary contradictions. What we all need to understand is that secondary contradictions have never defined the parameters of any revolutionary situations.

The growing tendencies by people of your calibre of gravitating away from the culture and traditions of our movement is a signal that counter revolution is knocking at our doorsteps. You cannot be part of the orchestrated offensive to undermine the unity of our movement.

I can see you have become to be amongst those who think to be a revolutionary is to throw insults at our national liberation movement and its collective leadership. You have become part of those whose determination is to play at the gallery to undermine the unity of the struggles of our people.

You are amongst those who are disrupting unity under cover of outcries of the struggles for the unity of our national democratic revolution. In you there is a growing danger of tendencies of personality cult and opportunism which are scavenging our movement to its marrow.

You have declared yourself a holy cow in the mist of a fierce terrain of our struggles. What you do not understand is that there are no holy cows in a revolution.

What you need to know is that holy cows are not characters of high moral ground guided by the true paradigms of our revolutionary struggles. Most of them suffer from dangerous tendencies of personality cult.

Our revolution needs our greatest sense of humility and self introspection and how we have all contributed individually to the problems we find ourselves today. The attempts by some you to be holier than thou is nothing else but pure acts of opportunism.

We all need to appreciate that the litmus test in the life of any revolutionary movement is its capacity to resolve the contradictions in society. The principal political role of any revolutionary movement is to influence the conditions of the material life of society and its development.

This is a task bestowed upon our movement by the overwhelming majority of the people of our country. The common purpose is to ensure that our movement continues to discharge its role as the vanguard of the struggle our people for national liberation.

The only way to achieve this noble objective is to ensure the unity and cohesion of our national democratic revolution. We need to ensure that our revolution always move forward with the ever increasing momentum.

History will not forgive us if we allow the moribund fascist movement led by the DA and the EFF to reverse back the gains of our democratic revolution. We must never allow the enemy to redirect the high moral standards of the struggle of our people.

The fundamental task of the leadership role of our movement continues to be the acceleration of the objectives of our national democratic revolution for transformation of our society. This is the common task we all need to achieve.

I hope that you will understand that this movement the ANC does not owe you anything. I hope you will understand that you are not a fellow traveler in our democratic republic.

I thank you

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.