SACP FREEDOM DAY STATEMENT
27 April 2009 marks the fifteenth anniversary of the celebrations of Freedom Day in South Africa. Fifteen years ago, South Africans had the first opportunity to vote in the first ever democratic elections to be held in our country. Only on Saturday, the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) declared the fourth democratic elections to be held in our country free and fair and thus for the fourth time, the people's movement, the ANC emerged once more victorious to lead our country and charged with the mandate to radically transform South African society for the better!
The ANC and the rest of the alliance remains extremely humbled by the overwhelming victory and committed to working together with our people to do more!
We have always maintained that the liberation of South Africa will not be worth anything if the dominant colonial character of economic forces remains unchanged; the persisting economic dominance of white and imperialist owned capitalist monopolies; narrow and compradorial black economic empowerment and the increasing super-exploitation of the black working class through outsourcing, casualisation and slave-like conditions under which most black farm workers continue to be subjected to. The revolution would have lost its meaning if it does not radically change these and other socio-economic conditions still facing the majority of our people.
We are celebrating fifteen years of our democracy in the midst of one of the worst economic crises since the advent of capitalism. We welcome the framework agreement reached by all social partners at NEDLAC to tackle this crisis. We however urge government to take this commitment more serious by ensuring that all social partners are full part of the implementation of the framework, in line with the ANC's commitment that working we can do more to protect the workers and the poor from the ravages of this crisis.
During the election campaign, we have come across many of our people who love the ANC but angry about lack of decisive intervention to speed delivery of basic service. We need to take radical actions to give meaning and hope to the lives of the thousands that we have met.
We owe it to the millions of our people to use the electoral victory to change the conditions of the farm workers who continue to suffer extreme humiliation at the helm of the farm owners. What they are yearning for is a decent house, running water and electrification, a decent job and respect for their basic human rights.
Millions of our people have serious backlogs in terms of roads, running water and proper sanitation. Most of this people have been robbed and wronged by the barbaric conduct and behavior of capitalism. In the North West, Mpumalanga, Limpopo and Northern Cape, the sins of the mining industry remain visible and a major threat to our freedom and democracy.
Capital broadly has for the past years engaged in manoeuvres to undermine our constitution. What we have instead seen is an elite reaction aimed at accusing the ANC and its President Cde Jacob Zuma as the threat to the constitution. These are elite concerns and at the most a concerted effort to protect the property clause in the constitution and legitimize the slow pace of land reform. The biggest threat to our constitution continues to be the denial of basic human rights of the majority by the predatory and exploitative practices of the capitalist system
We have the challenge in the next five years to push for quantitative and qualitative changes to better the lives of our people and give full meaning to our freedom. We firmly believe that the thorough implementation of the ANC's election manifesto is just one such platform to create a better life for all.
For the SACP celebrating fifteen year of advances made by our democracy also means intensifying the struggle to roll back the barbarism of capitalism and to fundamentally transform the colonial character of our economy.
Statement issued by the SACP, April 27 2009
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