The YCLSA condemns the so-called Friends of the Youth League

 Tuesday, 28 August 2012

As the YCLSA [uFasimba] in Gauteng province we organised a highly successful public lecture, hosted in Katlehong by Oupa Phasha District on Sunday, 26 August 2012. COSATU President Sidumo Dlamini was amongst the speakers who made presentations at the lecture, well informed by a scientific reflection on the shared history between the African National Congress (ANC) and the Communist Party as well as the progressive trade union movement as led by Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) in its different phases of development.

Following the lecture, the tendency of a counter-revolution - the so-called Friends of the Youth League (FYL) issued a statement titled "Friends of the Youth League respond's to Sister Sdumo Dlamini". In the statement the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and COSATU are attacked through a sarcastic attack on the nursing profession and COSATU President.

We condemn the attack to the contempt it warrants. We shall not reserve ourselves when our movement and its leaders are being attacked.

We find ourselves having the duty to respond because we organised the lecture. Most importantly we are fundamentally opposed to opportunism, demagogy and all forms of manoeuvres to divide workers as evidently reflected in the conduct of Julius Malema's so-called Friends of the Youth League.

The "FYL" is not only organised on the basis of support for ill-discipline and ill-disciplined elements either expelled or suspended from the ANC, but is also organised on the basis of the worst form of intellectual impairment manifested ever in South Africa.

Firstly, the ANC Youth League has rejected the friendship of and link with the "FYL". This has consistently been communicated in no uncertain terms by the ANCYL in Gauteng and at our lecture where the Youth League's leadership was represented by Gauteng Provincial Deputy Chairperson Simon Molefe. The link with the "FYL" has also been rejected or denied by the serving national leadership of the ANCYL on behalf of the Youth League as a whole just yesterday, Monday, 27 August 2012. It does not make sense therefore, both intellectually and socially, for the newly formed organisation of Julius Malema to call itself friends of the Youth League.

Secondly, the intellectual impairment of Julius Malema's "FYL" is not only reflected in the sarcastic and disrespectful use of the title ‘Sister' in their statement. It is also reflected in the "FYL's" sexist, sectarian and ill-informed attitude towards the title and nursing profession as a whole. In the "intellectual standard par excellence" of the "FYL" a nurse and fellow midwives cannot have struggle and revolutionary credentials. This is both historically and intellectually senseless. To name but a few, starting with COSATU President Sidumo Dlamini the South African struggle for national liberation and social emancipation has produced, to name but a few Albertina Susulu, Charlotte Maxeke, Lillian Ngoyi, and Cecilia Makiwane.            

Thirdly, in the "FYL's" complete intellectual capacity, divisions among workers represent a brighter future for the struggle to achieve improved working and employment conditions. This was evident in the attack on NUM and COSATU by the founding principal of the "FYL" Julius Malema and his spokesperson Floyd Shivambu in the aftermath of Marikana tragedy when they supported one infant union. The intellectual truth as reflected in COSATU's slogan is that an injury to one is an injury to all; that divided workers will fall, as it most unfortunately happened in Marikana where not only the police but also workers killed other workers including two police officers; and that united workers will make advances and lose nothing but their chains.

As the YCLSA we emerged from the lecture at least with one message. An attack on the on COSATU is an attack on the Communist Party and the ANC and is intolerable. This is our message to the "FYL" and reaffirmation of the warning by COSATU President on behalf of COSATU.

 Statement issued by Alex Mashilo YCLSA Gauteng Provincial Secretary, August 28 2012

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