RED ALERT Volume 01, Number 06, Monday 18 November 2024

Speech by the SACP General Secretary Solly Mapaila at the SACP fundraising dinner, Kempton Park on Friday, 15 November 2024.

Comrades, distinguished guests, allies, our comrades in government, and partners in the economy, ladies and gentlemen, good evening.

It is an honour to address you at this pivotal moment facing our country and our revolution to end colonial slavery, oppression and economic control by a minority in society. It is under this situation that the SACP will be holding its Fifth Special National Congress scheduled for 11 to 14 December 2024. This fundraising initiative is aimed at supporting the convening of the Special National Congress and if possible, other SACP programmes. I return to some.

We gather tonight not only to support the ongoing work of the SACP but to reaffirm our commitment to South Africa’s democratic transformation and development – a journey towards economic and social emancipation and justice for all, regardless of race and gender.

Thank you for being here as we rally together in the face of our country’s challenges, united by a shared vision for a better life for all.

Tonight, I speak to you as a comrade and fellow citizen, committed to see this country realise shared property, as opposed to degenerating into a wider gap between the rich and the poor, the haves and have nots, with the poor getting poorer and the rich getting richer. Such a society, characterised by growing inequality, can never know peace. To be sure, is not only the absence of war, but the affirmation of full humanity for all.

Comrades, ladies and gentlemen, South Africa is at a crossroads. It is clear to all and sundry that the time for half-measures has passed. We must confront our uncomfortable reality and stop patronising one another when Rome is burning. We should make radical policy changes to tackle the deep-seated structural challenges we face – systemic mass unemployment, poverty, inequality and consequent high levels of crime.

Let us be clear. The systemic challenges that we face are not insurmountable obstacles. With focused, decisive actions, we can chart a new course. The SACP stands ready to develop leadership of this charge, representing a beacon of hope and a commitment to structural and social transformation.

Our call for radical policy change

As many of you know, we at the SACP have been critical of coalition arrangements anchored in a collaboration with the beneficiaries of the racist and sexist economic, social and political regimes of colonial and apartheid oppression.

The problem in the GNU lies in one critical issue: the prioritisation and inclusion, above all else, of the right-wing, neo-liberal, white-led DA in a country whose population is overwhelmingly African and black.

The DA’s white leadership dominance, historical background and class underpinnings, including party-political donations, are a reflection and direct continuation of the racist legacy of colonial and apartheid oppression. There is no other better way of stating this truth.

When we point to the truth, certain voices use some sections of the media unjustly to accuse us of being “anti-white”. That claim is baseless. It is nonsensical, to say the least. What they should say, rather, is that we are against “whiteness” – the racist ideology that formed the DA’s origins and remains clearly visible in its DNA for all those who have the time to scrutinise it without even going deeper.

Those who spread the propaganda that we are anti-white are, in fact, racist. They hide behind the baseless allegation, which they also use to perpetuate their racism in defence of the legacy of white privilege. They are supported by certain dominant sections of the bourgeois media – in racially skewed ownership patterns still reflecting the legacy of colonial and apartheid oppression.

In reality, we are the first non-racial political organisation in this country’s history. For this, our leaders and many other comrades, like Bram Fischer, Joe Slovo, Yusuf Dadoo, Ruth First, Michael Harmel (A. Lerumo), Sarah and Fred Carneson, Jack and Ray Alexander Simons, Jeremy Cronin and Ronnie Kasrils, to name but a few, have been persecuted and called traitors for fighting for a non-racial society. At no point shall we compromise the historically oppressed majority to please a racist minority.

Our Party has many stalwarts who sacrificed their lives for the cause of non-racialism – imprisoned, murdered, or disappeared by the colonial and apartheid regimes. We remain committed to the revolutionary non-racial society as a strategic task started by none other than the Communist Party in the country.

The DA IS a post-apartheid continuation of the organisation of apartheid beneficiaries at its core. The dominant capitalist class forces underpinning it profited immensely from the oppression. We challenge those who object to our stance against the right-wing, neo- liberal DA in the GNU to come out, make their allegiance clear and publicly defend it and stop hiding behind the GNU as a label.

As the SACP, we make clear the distinction between appearance and essence, form and content, names and what they refer to in reality. This is part of the dialectical method of analysis that sets us apart from many parties.

For example, the DA presents itself as a “democratic organisation”, sprinkled as it is with black members and even leaders, but in essence it is a product of a racist past and part and parcel of the persisting legacy of that past as reflected in its white leadership dominance and its defence of white privilege and above all else associated bourgeois interests. It seeks to use its inclusion in the GNU to reverse progressive legislation in a nation that remains deeply divided in racially skewed, gendered and spatialised class inequalities. These inequalities date back to the roots of the colonial and apartheid capitalist super-exploitation and marginalisation of the historically oppressed – who were dispossessed and so disadvantaged that to this day still own no means of production in the economy.

The DA’s agenda both inside and outside the GNU is neo-liberalism and its economic attack on the working class and the poor at large. This renders the post-May 2024 GNU something else in essence, as there can be no unity between us and millions of other revolutionary and progressive South Africans, on the one hand, and the DA with its counter-revolutionary agenda, on the other.

While the GNU is presented as a unified body, as what the “U” in the “GNU” stands for, in reality it includes the intransigent right-wing, neo-liberal DA as one of its cells – a cancerous blue cell committed to at least countering or rolling back progress in transformative efforts in education, in advances like the NHI adopted to ensure quality healthcare for all, in initiatives adopted to revitalise the public economy, such as the imperative to recapitalise the public enterprises sector, among others. The DA, which does not hide its counterrevolutionary intentions and agenda, is busy actively rendering redundant the claims of the “U” for the unity in the “GNU”.

Some sections of society are quick to describe the body as a whole but lack the commitment – or even the capacity – to examine its individual cells and isolate the cancerous ones, such as the counter-revolutionary blue cell in the DNA of the post May 2024 GNU. As the SACP, we are consistent in what we said about the DA both before and after the May 2024 elections. To make our point clear, we will continue to fight against the rightward shift in government composition and policy. Looking back at the history of the South Africa that we characterised as a colony of a special type – a colony in which the coloniser and the colonised lived in the same country – we will reject any form of recolonisation, including “self-recolonisation”.

South Africa deserves policies that prioritise the needs of the majority. We need bold and radical shifts in policy to strengthen our National Democratic Revolution. Tonight, I want to outline the immediate steps regarding how we envision this transformation.

On 30 October, the Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement was tabled. This did not signal a shift from the failed, neo-liberal policies that have held us back since 1996. If this does not change, future budgets will follow the same path. This is not just about numbers on paper but about our people – our communities ravaged and destroyed by continuing unemployment, inequalities, poverty and crime, as well as despair. The government remains trapped in a bureaucratic vortex, showing signs of being incapable of resolving these problems and at a pace that reflects a sense of urgency.

The ravaging legacy of neo-liberalism

The legacy of neo-liberalism, going back to GEAR, has been 28 years of struggle, a diminishing domestic productive capacity, especially manufacturing, millions of our people bearing the brunt of economic deepening economic exploitation, marginalisation and exclusion from ownership. Let us be clear: South Africa can no longer afford the yoke of austerity.

State-led investment and economic growth

At the heart of our approach must be a commitment to state-led investment – and a significant public economy. We cannot transform our economy and raise the levels of national production relying on private monopolies that only serve a privileged few.

We need economic and social infrastructure expansion, maintenance and security. State- owned assets – our roads, power plants and ports – must serve the people. Millions in our townships and rural areas are still without necessities like clean water, healthcare and quality education. Our state must step up to provide these essentials. We will insist that public spending prioritises domestic production, localisation and the provision of decent work towards the right of all to work.

In the public sector, vacant positions must be filled immediately. A capable, developmental state is not achievable without a full complement of dedicated civil servants working across all levels of government. This means ending the austerity measures that have left our hospitals understaffed, our schools overcrowded, our defence degenerating in capacity, our police outflanked by private security and our social services stretched to the breaking point.

Monetary policy change

To expand access to work for all through large-scale employment creation and co- operatives support, we need a Reserve Bank that is people centred. The days of the restrictive inflation targeting and high interest rates must end. We call for a mandate that includes maximum sustainable employment creation, which is essential to support productive capacity expansion. We must make credit for productive activity affordable and accessible, enabling co-operatives and small, micro and medium-sized enterprises to thrive.

For instance, our municipalities are collapsing, largely due to inability to generate income because they have a poor economic base to exist or cannot receive enough service payments because of the entrenched high levels of unemployment and poverty. The National Treasury can work with the municipalities to facilitate adequate fiscal support, with monetary policy not aloof from playing a developmental role. We need to see developmental co-ordination between monetary and fiscal policies.

We reject the notion that an economy can be controlled solely by market forces. We need to see an economy that works for the people, with government intervention where necessary to protect employment and create sustainable, high-quality work, local industries and sustainable livelihoods.

Public employment and social protection

Public employment programmes must be a cornerstone of our economic strategy. We believe in the right of all to work – a fundamental principle of the Freedom Charter. Our people deserve work with dignity and remuneration concomitant with their contribution to value creation or production.

Also, it is only fair to establish a comprehensive social security system, in line with our caring values of Ubuntu, Botho  –  being humane. No one should have to go to bed hungry or live in fear of the next bill they cannot pay. By investing in our people, we invest in a stronger, more resilient economy.

Ladies and gentlemen, we want to partner with you to invest in skills for people who will be central to resolving daily problems in communities, as opposed to being trapped in cumbersome bureaucracy with no consequence.

Industrialisation and sectoral policy transformation

South Africa’s path to true independence lies in its industrial capacity. We must develop local industries across sectors, from agriculture to manufacturing, by, among others, ensuring domestic beneficiation of our natural resources. With a strong and adequately supported industrial policy from both monetary and fiscal policy, we can drive the development of the right of all to work in practice, build a sustainable economy that meets our nation’s needs and empower more and more people in ownership terms.

Sectoral policies must also support food security and sovereignty, including seed and cultivars security. A transformative agricultural strategy is critical, as is a transport and communication sector that provides affordable services to all.

Strengthening the public economic sector

The Industrial Development Corporation, Public Investment Corporation, and Development Bank of Southern Africa are crucial in our vision of a state-led infrastructure development and broad-based empowerment. These entities must be resourced to drive public infrastructure projects, finance broad-based industrialisation, de-monopolise key sectors and provide empowerment funding to alter ownership patterns in our economy from those still overwhelmingly characterised by the legacy of colonial and apartheid capitalist production relations.

We need a financial sector that serves the people as a whole. As you know, we have been driving the financial sector transformation campaign, among others, to alter the patterns and relations of ownership in this crucial sector. Among others, we are champions of a public banking system to ensure affordable access to finance, savings and other financial services for all South Africans.

Combating crime

No economic and social plan can succeed in a society plagued by violence, looting and other forms of lawlessness. Crime in South Africa is a major cause of sleepless nights, affecting many families and industries, with the number of victims on the rise, making people of all ages live in fear and having and considering an investment in the country unfavourable.

The proportion of private security spending by industry, the government at all levels, and an increasing number of families, but only those who can afford, has been rising and rising. There are just so many threats associated with this, including increasing concentration of arms in the hands of private economic interests as a totality vis-à-vis law enforcement authorities, such as the SAPS. This should not be the case in a democratic developmental state that has its own capacity to ensure public safety and security, protect investment and clamp down on crime.

The rise in crime levels in South Africa is closely linked, among others, to the neo-liberal policies, such as austerity, the budget cuts that have negatively impacted the capacity of and morale in the law enforcement authorities. All this must come to an end if we want to see a South Africa characterised by shared prosperity.

The criminal networks exploiting our communities must be dismantled, and this also means confronting the economic policy failures indicated by high levels of unemployment, poverty and inequality and social ills that allow crime to flourish. Only by adequately resourcing law enforcement authorities, including paying law enforcement workers well, and by building an economy that serves everyone, can we end the desperation associated with crime.

Hope through unity and action

Our vision for South Africa is ambitious, but possible. Radical policy changes are essential, but so is our unity as a people. As we work towards these goals, we will continue to mobilise and educate, building a powerful patriotic movement and, on our part as the SACP, over and above forging a popular left front and building a socialist movement of the workers and poor. Together, with the support of progressive forces in all sectors of the economy and society broadly, we can transform South Africa for the better.

Let tonight be a reminder that the SACP represents not only struggle but hope – a hope for a society rooted in justice, equality and shared prosperity from socially produced wealth – that is, wealth that is produced through the labour of its producers co-operating in its production process. Together, we can build a South Africa that honours the sacrifices of those who came before us and promises a brighter future for those yet to come.

Comrades and distinguished guests,

Fostering partnerships is of strategic importance

As the SACP, we are honoured by the partnerships we have established with working- class organisations and traditional leaders in our country. Equally, we take pride in the socialist partnerships we have built in different regions of the world.

We extend our sincere gratitude to the Communist Party of China for supporting the Rural Development Initiative spearheaded by the SACP in South Africa. This initiative includes partnerships in three villages, for now. Our collaboration with Paramount Queen Clara Mashile, who is present with us tonight, is pivotal in fostering sustainable economic development in Matibidi.

We also value our relationship with Kgoši Moloi, who is also here with us tonight. Through the assistance of the Communist Party of China and the embassy in South Africa, we have installed boreholes to provide water to the community and fenced off critical areas to safeguard development of productive activity. We are now expanding agricultural projects, thanks to the support of the Chinese Foundation for Peace and Development.

In addition, we have launched community-owned stores through our Dora Tamana Co- operative Agency. These stores aim to reduce dependency on unsecured supply chains to the tuckshops which have tragically contributed to food poisoning incidents killing our children. Community ownership fosters self-reliance, opens economic opportunities and encourages our people to take charge of their futures.

We believe the informal economy is so essential that thinking of banning spaza shops is not an option. They have been a critical lifeline of sustainable livelihoods in the black communities and should be upgraded economically and formalised instead of being banned. I am a product of that. We need to tighten regulations and address the source of problems like the various instances of the illegal sale of organophosphate poison that the Gauteng Provincial Government has correctly decided to take action against.