Today the South African Students Congress (SASCO) our sister organisation launches its Right to Learn Campaign in Mpumalanga. This gathering will be addressed by the leadership of the Progressive Youth Alliance as part of the commitments we have made in ensuring that we achieve ‘Free Education in our Lifetime' as part of the broader struggles for socialism we wage in dismantling the legacy of apartheid colonialism and the capitalist system in South Africa and beyond.

The characteristics of apartheid legacy still haunt us across the education sector and are more viral in the higher education institutions that were the preserve of the elite and racial exclusion. It is this legacy that we should push our campaigns strongly without being defocused by the neo-liberal media with the clearest understanding that struggle is the determinant of transformation. There is resistance from university councils and management and there are a lot of cover-ups of incidents that seek to dehumanise and treat black African and working class students, workers and some lecturers within these institutions as sub-standard.

We have been exposed recently to the Democratic Alliance Student Organisation's vile racial soft porn poster and the death of a student in University of North West as part of what can be referred to as initiation systems that happen across South African universities and management continues to deny their existence, the same happened with the Reitz case at the University of Free State and many others. It is a sad story that in all this cases the racial connotation remains and makes us alive to the remnants that seek to entrench racism and elitism within education, and society.

We send our condolences again to the family that has lost one hope of survival from the conditions it finds itself trapped in, this is the second condolences that we send as a consequence of hunger for higher education despite the circumstances of death but they highlight the inhumane systems towards the working class and the continued oppression of the black man due to his or her race. This conditions cannot continue to exist and rear their heads; we urge that the issues of race are dealt with adequately and with the necessary sensitivity in institutions and society before their sporadic outbursts become a norm that will prove challenging to society.

The recent nude campaign by the Democratic Alliance Student Organisation has raised a lot of brows as it further exposes the myth that the Democratic Alliance is an organisation that wants to see a transformed South Africa and believes in a non-racial vision. This dream of the DA is nothing but a smokescreen which plays to the gallery and this nudist perception of politics is just a face of the immoral neo-liberal perceptions that are uncaring and insensitive to the plight of the majority unless they want their votes.

The DA cannot hope that just by having a dream on a non-racial society that purports that they in fact will realise that vision. For as long as the DA, its structures and membership fails to acknowledge the legacy and brutal history of apartheid-colonialism and the need to dismantle such through a myriad of policies such as Affirmative Action, BBBEE, land redistribution and many more interventions; its vision is a myth of a pot at the end of a rainbow.

The DA has been the at the centre of opposing all transformation routes within our society with its neo-liberal policies using the courts, the media and all the capitalist machinery within its disposal for the further continuation of exclusion of the majority of society to access development aimed at them. The DA is adamant from its parent and youth structures that the poster brings a new debate on race matters but we are not misled and are unplugged from the racial myth and believe that race relations will be transformed when class relations are transformed because no real transformation can exist outside of this.

The profit driven model of our institutions of higher education, a consequence of neo-liberal approaches within our society is not sustainable for our developmental objectives as a nation and further excludes the majority from accessing education. This happens in the form of (1) admission and registration fees and (2) financial exclusion for those that cannot be academically excluded once in the system; it is then argued that the sustainability of these institutions is reliant on the constant increase of fees to survive or close shop in their threats from regressive management. This further entrenches the class imbalances and the development path becomes skewed in favour of the rich as opposed to the poor who cannot cope with this alienation; it therefore becomes primary that young commies are conscientised and sharpened to wage and lead these struggles from the front.

The illusion of the DA can never be true as the DA is an enemy of change and is the last line of defence for ill-gotten gains of the satanic apartheid system that ensured that the majority of the society is disconnected from its own labour and does not enjoy the fruits of its own toil. We debunk the myth and say this naked non-racialism that is void of real content is a dream they should wake from and smell the coffee. It is greatly puzzling that noises are made of race transformation disregarding questions of dispossession that are not addressed and what the essence of the whole race oppression was on the dispossession of land, resources and all to subjugate and weaken by the colonialists.

Wild perception of non-racialism defeats the objective we pursue of creating a non-racial society built by sacrifices that have been made since the advent of colonialism in South Africa which saw the dispossession of lands, the oppression of blacks, Africans in particular and the working class as a whole. We reemphasise to society as a whole that it is only through constant struggles that a truly united, non-racial, non-sexist, democratic and prosperous South Africa can be achieved as has been pursued by the African National Congress led Alliance over the years.

The hold on economic power by the bourgeoisie is a tool of continued oppression and control of society as the dominant ideas of society are theirs through their monopoly of the media, education and knowledge production, how we think and act resides with them unless we bring forth a consciousness level through struggle and ensuring that education is people orientated and is developmental and speaks to our conditions; lest we will be resigning to the white minority that is in charge of all to continue its brutal exploitation of our working class. It is then a primary message that we must conscientise the whole of society and start building socialism now.

We call on all students who truly want to see a non-racial South Africa to reject the illusions that the DA is creating and concern themselves with the real transformation issues of our society as they are a reservoir of knowledge production and development within society. Young people should never allow themselves to be deceived by masks of deception such as the nude pictures that seeks to paint a picture of a youth that only thinks sexuality and nothing else when the youth are the ones feeling the brunt of a majority of challenges associated with poverty, inequality and unemployment. The youth must reject this perception with all its ill intentions.

The era of financial exclusions must end and a new era of free public quality education must be instilled by our leadership and society should call for such. A level playing field is the ultimate aim whereby universities will be centres of the people and administration will be independent of education. We cannot and will never allow ourselves to be further oppressed due to our poverty...

Away with financial exclusions away!!!

Forward with free education forward!!!

Make Education fashionable!!!

Mangaliso Stalin Khonza is the National Spokesperson of the Young Communist League. This article first appeared in the YCL's online journal, The Bottomline.

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