Viewpoint | by Malusi Gigaba 70 YEARS OF STRUGGLE: Celebrating the gallantry of youth, confronting challenges facing the ANCYL Viewpoint by Malusi GigabaThe formation of the ANC Youth League in 1944, 70 years ago, followed a long protracted process of struggle in which all our people, young and old, men and women, black as well as white, had heroically participated. It must not be viewed as a single event, but, as a culmination of objective conditions particularly during the period of the Second World War of 1939-1945, and their socio-economic impact on South African society and politics. On the other hand, it was as a harbinger of a new phase of struggle which commenced in the forties with the growing radicalisation of the black workers and the youth, in particular, and black communities in general in both urban and rural areas. Preoccupation with the questions of the future, what it will be, what it will look like and how it shall be achieved, place the youth at the very centre of every nations endeavours. It was precisely for this reason, because he had fully grasped and appreciated the central role of the youth in pursuit of the future, as well as the fact that the youth and the future were inseparable one from the other, that the late President O.R. Tambo made the incisive remark that: A country, a movement, a people, that does not value its youth, does not deserve its future. Of course, to this we would hasten to add that - A youth that do not value their country, people and movement, do not deserve their future! In its 1985 2nd National Consultative Conference discussion document on the role of the youth in the struggle, the ANC Youth Section made the observations that: The young and rising generation constitutes a representative of the future in the broadest sense; the future of any society depends on the practical and spiritual moulding of the youth. Classes and strata act not only for their own good but also for the good of their rising generation. They then proceeded to say that: All societies in general, and classes in particular, pay special attention to the youth. For any people or class to shirk this responsibility is to do great harm to itself. This applies particularly to peoples struggling to break the shackles of oppression and exploitation. No revolution can be victorious without the effective education, organisation and mobilisation of the youth into political action… Their youthful energy enables them to perform great feats in the theatre of battle; their vigour enables them to be the most active transmitters of ideas and skills; their zeal spreads into their surroundings like wild-fire. The correctness of these observations has been vindicated by time itself as the South African youth played a pivotal role in the collective popular uprising against apartheid-colonialism. Accordingly, during this week that the ANCYL turned an historic 70years old, three inter-related questions rise to sharp prominence: •First, the urgent need to rebuild the ANCYL, in terms of both its organisational machinery as well as political and ideological orientation; •Secondly, the urgent need to mobilise, organise and educate - that is, conscientise - the youth in general so that they remain a dependable ally of the forces fighting for the genuine and fundamental social transformation of our society and so that they act, at all material times, as a potent force for genuine revolutionary change; and •Thirdly, the urgent need to define the role of the youth during this period that the movement has unanimously decided to characterise as the second phase of the transition. The 70 years of the ANCYL is a historic milestone, not only for the ANCYL itself, the ANC and the mass democratic movement as a whole, but for the youth and people of South Africa. This is because, over the past seven decades, the youth and the ANCYL have become synonymous with one another, and there has never been a day or decade when they had to do one without the other. They have traversed the high road of struggle, together scoring many victories and also suffering many setbacks. For seven decades, the ANCYL has been among the front rank combatants in the struggle, and in the centre of the struggles of the youth, providing them with principled and militant leadership. They have led the youth of South Africa into the struggle for national freedom as an integral component part of that struggle, in the conviction and knowledge that youth interests were inseparable from those of our people as a whole. As it did so, as it mobilised them into the struggle, the ANCYL taught the youth through united action to shed their fear for the racist rulers and their repressive machinery until total victory was won. Accordingly, throughout the period of the struggle the enemy learned to recognise and hate the gallantry of the youth and hence was forced to try to destroy them using its forces of repression. Consequently, in celebrating the successful completion of the 70 years of its existence, we are also celebrating the sheer courage of young people and their singular determination to commit sacrifices in the name of freedom, democracy and justice. Throughout the entire seven decades that have passed on, there never was a decade during which the youth never made a remarkable contribution into the struggle in order, indeed, to take it to newer heights. Together, the ANCYL and the youth have taken it upon themselves to bear the principal responsibility for the emancipation of our people and our land. This moment, therefore, must be shared jointly by the youth and by our organisation. The moment has arrived to rebuild the ANC Youth League and reposition it at the very centre of youth struggles; indeed, to sharpen its ideological and political orientation whilst we strengthen and remould its organisational machinery as a potent force for revolutionary change. This arises even more sharply today given the pertinent challenges it faces after the dissolution of its National Executive Committee. The decision to dissolve the National Executive Committee of the ANCYL was not one taken lightly by the leadership of the movement. The fact is that we agonised over it for a long period of time, even as there were impatient calls for us to take this decision hastily and quickly and at the risk of being accused to be lame-duck. However, this was a decisive moment in the rich and eventful seventy-year-history of the organisation. Never had the ANC been faced with having to take such a harsh decision of its ANCYL. However, reality is that particularly during the past five years, if not more, the ANCYL underwent comprehensive political and organisational degeneration which left many ANC members so angry that they were ready to take the decision to dissolve ANCYL NEC right at the 53rd National Conference itself in Mangaung. So popular was this view that it would have been taken unanimously and with slight slant of the language, it could even have been the organisation in its entirety, and not just its leadership structure, which might have ended being dissolved. Of course, in its wisdom, the National Conference felt that such a task must be executed by the new NEC, which itself did not resort to it at the very first instance or slightly. The ANC NEC engaged in frequent debates over this matter and eventually arrived at this decision when it became patently clear to it that the ANCYL has reached a staged of irredeemable political and organisational malaise, which could not be solved through existing mechanisms. None must be in doubt as to the drastic nature of the dissolution of any structure and the agony pursuant to such an act, as the ANC NEC had itself posed the question whether the dissolution of structures is after all the correct method to deal with political and organisational malaise. Accordingly, the rebuilding of the ANCYL is an urgent political and organisational priority for the ANC as a whole, and not the youth of the ANC alone. First and foremost, as we have stated it above, the youth are central to the pursuit of the future we want; the two cannot be separated one from the other. Secondly, the political participation of the youth in the struggle and their organisational grounding ensures our movement and struggle of dynamism and permanent relevance among the newer generations of society. And, thirdly, a revolutionary and politically-conscious youth with correct ideological grounding, as well as the ANCYL itself, are the ANCs insurance policy; a guarantee and assurance that it shall continue to exist into the future and that future generations will not betray the revolutionary ideals of their predecessors. As an integral part of the revolutionary movement, the ANCYL is charged with the specialised task of fulfilling the strategic objectives of the movement with the greater involvement of the youth. It must rally the youth to participate in the struggle for fundamental social change and champion their political and socio-economic interests. It has the responsibility of organising, mobilising and guiding all our youth into participation in the revolutionary struggle of our people. It must bring the youth into progressive politics, the struggle and the ANC and must also bring progressive politics, the struggle and the ANC to the youth. It bridges the gap between the different generations of the youth and ensures that there is healthy tension between the various generations that helps to imbue the youth with the experience and wisdom of the older and yet fire the older with the enthusiasm, the fearlessness and revolutionary zeal of the new. Without the younger generations, the ANC would be like a car with brakes only and no accelerator; whilst without the older, it would be like a car with an accelerator only and no brakes. In this regard, the ANCYL does not act as a separate organism but as an integral mass youth political organ whose existence serves as a perennial political and organisational reservoir for ever newer recruits and cadres for the pursuit of the national democratic revolution. It acts as a nursery of the revolutionary upbringing of those who come into the movement and provides the material requirements for the fulfilment of a cadre policy designed to meet all the demands of our struggle, particularly as the struggle traverses through newer dynamics. Its existence ensures that the ANCs vision of the future is both transmitted to and translated for the newer generations of the youth so that it remains permanently relevant to them. Our country is making tremendous progress on all fronts, albeit we need to translate the gains of political progress to ensure that the people as a whole share in the countrys wealth. At this juncture, we need to intensify the ideological struggle at the same time as we intensify the struggle for socio-economic freedom. Never has the need to intensify the ideological struggle, particularly among the youth, been as urgent as it is today. This has been made all the more urgent by the ideological offensive of our right-wing, neo-liberally-inclined opponents trying to imbue the youth with liberal ideas and turn them into reactionary adherents of backwardness. On the other hand are populist fascists who are trying to imbue the youth with populist ideas that the problems of our country accumulated over centuries of colonial domination can be solved through easy and short-termist solutions that will have the effect to wreck our economy, reverse the gains of our revolution and undermine the authority and vision of the movement robustly built over a century of struggle. Both the neo-liberal and populist factions of the political reaction cohere both in making overtures to the youth, to lure them along their perspectives, as well as in trying to convince the youth that the gains of this democracy are inadequate and they can offer a better alternative. Accordingly, we need to renew and rebuild the revolutionary-democratic political organs of the youth, particularly the ANCYL, which today faces its most mammoth challenges since its 70 years ago. Rebuilding the ANCYL is not about taking it to its next national congress, but it is fundamentally about rebuilding it and positioning it as the natural and only correct political home of all youth, male and female, black and white, drawn from all the sectors - working, students, professional and rural youth. We must restore the ANCYLs essential quality and glory on the basis of which it was founded in 1944. The future of any movement or nation is dependent also on the integration of the youth in the political and other social activities. The grooming of those who have to ensure that the genuine aspirations of the people are fully realised demands a conscious effort on the part of the movement and, therefore, our ability to educate them in a genuine revolutionary spirit is pivotal. Now, let me be clearer on this point: the successful pursuit of the creation of the National Democratic Society and the successful execution of the tasks of the second phase of the transition cannot happen without the strong support and leadership of both the ANC as well as the ANCYL as the political home of the youth, the custodians of our future. Announcing this moment of progress from the past, President said here in Polokwane in 2011 on January 8th that: We must make the decisive shift to meaningful economic transformation and set in motion a very deliberate programme that will ensure that the benefits of our political liberation are shared amongst all our people. Our people have struggled selflessly for freedom from oppression. We cannot fail them when it comes to the struggle for the elimination of poverty. To this end the ANC will be in the forefront of engaging with every role player in this economy and marshal our forces towards the goal of achieving an eradication of poverty. This will include the deepening of empowerment of black South Africans in general. We have to live the promise of the Freedom Charter, which states amongst others, that all our people will share in the wealth of the country. Political emancipation without economic transformation is meaningless. Accordingly and whilst bearing in mind the limitations imposed on our transition by the balance of forces at the moment of the advent of our transition, which compelled us to enter into certain strategic compromises, and whilst conceding that we have not done as well in certain spheres of the post-apartheid transition, particularly in terms of reducing unemployment, poverty and inequality, it would be safe that our revolution has accomplished the political tasks which had to do with its first phase of the transition, and that the moment has arrived, guided by the correct theoretical foundations, to proceed to the next phase characterised by radical socio-economic change. However, ask anyone in the ANC what does radical socio-economic transformation mean and you would emerge with a thousand answers. To others it means implementing new economic programmes in the infrastructure sector, albeit within the confines of the current production system - more of the same, and yet to others it means a fundamental shift in the current structure of production and moving towards a more radical, equitable system and job-creating framework - a more heterodox approach. The question is, can the current structure of production support job creation, skills development and create equality? Can it lead to social justice? The answer is, NO! And this is not because it remains in the hands of a white male minority, but because it has reached its apex beyond which it can no longer support any new advancement in the productive forces and cannot hence lead to wide-scale production as we seek in South Africa or change the fundamental colonial structure of relations between South Africa and Africa, as well as between South Africa and the world. In reality, since decolonisation, Africa as a whole has remained the producer and exporter of primary commodities, which it produces not for her own consumption, but for the consumption, gratification and enrichment of the hitherto colonial-masters who then reap immense benefits and profits from trading with us in secondary and even tertiary goods. The South African economy has historically been built around and is currently locked into affordable and abundant coal reserves and we are an energy intensive economy. As a result, the economy got on an irreversible de-industrialisation path as we got comfortable with this economic structure and added no value on the minerals we were extracting, except to use coal to produce cheap electricity. The old colonial economy predicated as it was on the minerals-energy complex remains intact in Africa, as well as South Africa, with stubborn resistance from the mining houses and entrenched economic and political interests to changing it. This still defines Africas relations with the world and retards the further development of the forces of production which must play a vital role in the development of the South African economy and society. Today, an inescapable and irrefutable fact is that it is only those countries that have transcended to the productive economy - manufacturing - that are the engines of growth. This means that unless industrialisation is the ultimate objective of our massive infrastructure programme, even this programme will end up reinforcing the current production and social relations and will entrench racial, class and gender disparities. Central to this industrialisation strategy must be the development of black industrialists as part of the effort fundamentally to alter the structure and patterns of ownership in our country. It is clear that proceeding towards its national congress, this should constitute the most important and robust debate, not in the sensational and populist manner as we did towards the 2010 NGC, but in a more disciplined though robust fashion as is characteristic of the ANC. What often compounds, or to use a strong word, what often soils, our debates is opportunistic posturing for the next elective conferences. We need to identify the areas in the economy, such as mining, the automotive sector, the oil and gas, fleet locomotives and even the ocean economy which are going to be the drivers of our industrialisation programme and align our economic policies - which are often contradictory to one another - to pursue the same objective. These tasks, complex and ostensibly daunting as they are, can be overcome. To do so requires that the ANC and ANCYL be strong. In particular, it requires that the ANCYL be sharpened ideologically, politically and organisationally to be able to confront the struggles of today and the future. Only a people that are confident of the future and are unyielding in its pursuit can defeat the opponents of change, both the right-wing deviationists and their comrades-in-arms, the populist demagogues. >> Malusi Gigaba, ANC NEC Member and former ANCYL President
Posted on: Sun, 14 Sep 2014 15:19:55 +0000
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