Yesterday, 29 March 2014, I attended the launch of the Workers and Socialist Party Election Manifesto Launch in Katlehong on the East Rand. It is the only political party in South Africa not funded by capitalist corporations or banks. I was greatly surprised to find a mix of older comrades and young socialist militants. On conversing with the older comrades, people my age I discovered that many of them were stalwarts of the old Federation of South African Trade Unions (FOSATU) the precursor of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU). These were the guys who as young workers in the 1970s, shook the Apartheid regime to its core, starting with the 1973 motor car industry strikes in Durban. They all knew the young, and at the time left wing activists such as Alec Erwin, Trevor Manuel, and many of the early COSATU and United Democratic Front leaders who so heinously sold out the socialist program of the working class to the neo-colonial leadership of the ANC. I also met some of the earliest members and founders of the South African National Civics Organisation (SANCO). SANCO if left unpolluted by the ANC would have formed the foundation for democratic socialist local government in South Africa. More interestingly, there were current members and shop stewards present from a variety of trade unions including NUMSA. The call to NUMSA is to indicate to its members to vote for WASP in the coming elections in May as it is the only socialist party on the ballot. Not voting is not an option as a no vote is vote for the ANC. Coming to the socialist youth, I found young people from universities and colleges in Limpopo, Gauteng, Free State and North West, all organising on their respective campuses. Not surprisingly, there is a complete media black out of WASP. SABC and the corporate media are clearly colluding to deny the working class any information regarding WASP. WASP is under no delusion about the bourgeois election, it knows that the election process is stacked against the working class and the poor. It is aware that it will get no news coverage from the bourgeois media, However, it has decided to proceed given that it is time for an independent, self professed working class party on the ground, a party that will use the election as a platform for organisation and ideological awareness raising, and to prepare for the inevitable crisis of capitalism in South Africa, of which the current strike in the platinum sector, and the countless service delivery protests are but a precursor. Photos will follow.
Posted on: Sun, 30 Mar 2014 07:51:14 +0000