Press Statement of the SACP Central Committee
4-5 March 2011
The Central Committee of the SACP met on the 4th and 5th of March in Johannesburg. The political report of the secretariat laid the basis for substantive political discussion within the CC. Issues covered included the Employment Equity Act and the imperative of re-affirming a principled non-racialism; the need to wage a consistent struggle against tenderpreneurship, rent-seeking behaviour and the abuse of proximity to political power; the SACP's approach to the forthcoming local government elections; and the popular uprisings sweeping across North Africa and parts of the Middle-East.
Defending and advancing non-racial principles - an absolute imperative
In July this year the Communist Party in South Africa will be celebrating its 90th anniversary. Even our most vociferous opponents concede that it was our Party that pioneered non-racialism, both in our principles and in our actual practice. For many decades from the 1920s the Communist Party was, in fact, the only political party in SA that had a non-racial membership, in which black and white comrades fought side by side.
It is quite natural, therefore, that the SACP strongly associates itself with all those who have condemned unequivocally racially insensitive remarks in the context of the transformation of the labour market.
However, at the same time, we must be careful that we do not allow ourselves to be played by a white minority agenda orchestrated by the likes of Solidarity and Afriforum. We condemn those who have pounced on these ill-advised remarks not in order to correct them and help to build national unity, but in order to whip up minority prejudices and fears. Every time we approach elections, forces, that not too long ago were calling for a qualified franchise, now piously trumpet their commitment to non-racialism while, in practice, stoking up the fires of divisive ethnic sentiment.
These insensitive remarks were made in the context of the draft Employment Equity Amendment Bill, currently serving before NEDLAC. The SACP calls on government to withdraw those parts of the Bill that propose an approach to employment equity that is insensitive to diverse regional realities.
It is also within this general context that the CC took note of last month's ANC Western Cape ANC provincial conference. The CC expressed its appreciation for a distinct improvement, in the recent period, in the relations between the ANC and its SACP and COSATU partners in the province. This improvement in provincial Alliance relations must be consolidated and sustained.
A key to building non-racialism in the Western Cape is the unity of workers and the urban and rural poor, especially the unity between the African and Coloured working class. The SACP firmly believes that there is much more that unites the African and Coloured working class, than racial, opportunistic maneuvers aimed at short-term electoral gains. We have long believed that the SACP and COSATU together with the ANC have a critical role to play in this regard.
Down with tenderpreneurship and the abuse of proximity to political power
Over several years the SACP has been leading the battle against corruption, patronage, and the abuse of proximity (real or apparent) to political power. The SACP, together with our Alliance partners, will continue to take up this struggle without fear or favour.
At the same time, the Party has every intention of waging this struggle in a principled and consistent manner, and of not taking it up in a pick-and-choose, factional manner. Many of the allegations floating around in the media over the past few weeks, whatever their accuracy appear to have their origin in ulterior motives. At least some of the sources quoted widely are politically well placed individuals themselves, motivated by a sense that it is THEY who should have been favoured with this or that deal instead of someone else.
The Party also agrees with all those who have condemned various offensive displays of conspicuous consumption. However, a sensationalist and one-sided focus on arrogant high-profile personalities often associated with "new money" should not distract us equally from the more insidious, inconspicuous consumption of "old money" elite within our society. Levels of persisting, racialised inequality are absolutely unacceptable and a source of long-term instability for our democracy. This is the context in which the SACP has been calling for a new more inclusive and egalitarian growth path in which the resources of our country are targeted at the productive economy and not at elite consumption - whether conspicuous or otherwise.
Towards a new growth path
Since the mid-1990s the SACP has been highlighting the need to place our country onto a different growth path that is focused on jobs and sustainable livelihoods, with a key element being a state-led industrial policy programme. It is in this context that the SACP strongly welcomed the paradigm shift in this direction represented by government's New Growth Path framework document released late last year. We have urged our Alliance partners to join us, not in rubber stamping everything contained in government's NGP document, but to seize the opportunity to consolidate, deepen and defend a new, state-led thrust in economic transformation.
As the Alliance, we cannot position ourselves as stand-offish theoretical textual critics of this key government strategic policy initiative. We are pleased to note that at last weekend's Alliance Summit we agreed to collectively position ourselves in support of struggling for a new growth path. We agreed to move actively to mobilize for the practical implementation of the many aspects of government's new growth path upon which we all agree.
Going forward it will also be important that, as Alliance partners, we deal frankly and constructively with the issues that have the potential to divide us. In our ongoing engagement with our Alliance partners the SACP will, amongst other things, seek to open up a discussion on grave challenges within the labour market. We reject those neo-liberal voices who are once more trying to recycle the claim that workers' in SA enjoy "too many rights". The real objective of these arguments is not job-creation, but profit maximization. We also reject their attempt to counterpose job creation, decent work and sustainable livelihoods. While jobs, decent work and sustainable livelihoods are not identical realities, a common struggle for all three is profoundly complementary within the South African reality.
Decent work is not just about levels of remuneration and work-place rights, it is a reality which must increasingly embrace the broader social wage - housing, access to ongoing skills training, a comprehensive social security net including a National Health Insurance, and affordable and accessible public transport. A capitalist SA will never be able to provide full employment for all our people, and in the face of the crisis levels of unemployment in our society, it is critical that we pay much more attention to strategies for sustainable livelihoods through the massification of the public works programme in which we move progressively to creating full-time work and not just temporary work opportunities. The self-employed sector, cooperatives and other initiatives that enable households to be productively engaged also need much more vigorous implementation.
The CC noted that it is now nearly a year that the Aurora workers have not been paid. It is absolutely essential that solutions are found to the plight of these workers. The SACP will be working closely with NUM in solidarity with these workers.
Towards an ANC-led victory in the May 18th local government elections - for people-driven local development
The SACP will be campaigning shoulder to shoulder with our Alliance partners in the forthcoming local government elections. The SACP has been an active contributor to the ANC local government election manifesto and our Party activist cadre is already in the field in door-to-door campaigning.
The key themes that the SACP is advancing in the course of the election campaign are:
a. The need to align local Integrated Development Plans to a new national growth path and our industrial policy action plan. Local economic development needs to be centered around our key priorities of job creation and building sustainable livelihoods;
b. Ensuring that municipal land is used effectively to advance local IDPs, and not sold-off unstrategically to speculators and private property developers;
c. Building local government capacity to deliver, by keeping core service delivery functions within the municipalities - through rolling back outsourcing, ensuring sustained local skills development programmes for municipal staff and departments, and the appropriate devolution of resources and responsibilities to the local sphere of government;
d. Involving communities in determining local development priorities, and subjecting councilors to such mandates, with a particular focus on rural areas;
e. Holding councilors to the legislative requirement of convening quarterly ward meetings at which ward development priorities must be discussed and progress evaluated;
f. Providing dedicated support to cooperatives in the delivery of municipal services; and
g. Ensuring that each municipality develops a comprehensive anti-corruption strategy.
Popular democratic uprisings in North Africa and parts of the Middle East
The CC discussed at some length an analysis of the unfolding popular democratic uprisings in many parts of the Arab world. The CC condemned state and state-inspired violence directed against protestors and civilians in general.
The CC noted that these uprisings mark a decisive resurgence of popular agency in the Arab world, breaking the bonds of fear and repression, and asserting a profound democratic yearning for popular sovereignty.
In some respects the Arab popular uprisings are directly connected to the evolving global capitalist crisis which has seen its epicentre shift from US financial markets, to sovereign debt crises in key parts of Southern Europe. This epicentre has now crossed the Mediterranean, starting in Tunisia, a country closely connected economically and politically to Southern Europe. Rising food prices have also played a key part in popular discontent in these societies. And these escalating food prices are themselves partly the consequence of financial speculators shifting from the sub-prime housing market to food futures, and partly the consequence of that other axis of the global capitalist crisis - global warming and its impact on harvests in many parts of the world.
While there are national specifics in different countries (Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Yemen, etc.) - there are important common features at play in the uprisings. These popular uprisings are largely urban in character - reflecting an increasingly new reality of the Arab World, and indeed of the Third World more generally - rapid urbanization and the burgeoning of squalid slums and high levels of unemployment, particularly youth unemployment. Many of the demands in these uprisings are marked by a strong and welcome secular emphasis, and the active participation of women is also a notable feature in many cases.
The evolution and eventual outcome of these uprisings is uncertain. Years of repression have meant that progressive political, trade union and civic organizations are weak. The quality and durability of the democratic uprisings underway will critically depend on the ability of the working class, the youth sector, various professional and other middle strata, and the rank-and-file and junior officer corps of the armed forces to find common cause.
While the US and other imperialist countries were clearly caught off guard, and while key regional strong-men (notably Mubarak) have been lost, the US and other imperialist countries are maneuvering actively in the region as they seek to achieve low-intensity democracy stabilization. There is an especial danger in Libya that the atrocious brutality with which the regime is responding to its own citizens will be used as a pretext by the US and other NATO forces to intervene actively in the name of "human rights", but with an eye on oil wells. The whole of Africa must be vigilant and we must be categorical in condemning any attempt at military intervention from these quarters.
Consolidating national democratic breakthroughs in the Arab world also holds out great possibilities for an eventual realization of the Palestinian people's national aspirations - to live with security and at peace with the people of Israel in the context of a two-state settlement.
2011 Cricket World Cup
The SACP has noted the good performance by our national team at the 2011 World Cup thus far and we are excited by the unity and fighting spirit displayed by the team. We wish the team well as they proceed to the next stage of the tournament and urge all South Africans to unite behind the team in their endeavor to bring the coveted trophy home.
Statement issued by the SACP Central Committee, March 6 2011
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