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Speech by Premier on the challenges of transformation
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 EASTERN CAPE PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENT
SPEECH BY PREMIER STOFILE
 AT THE SADTU :CENTRAL REGION
 ON  THE CHALLENGES OF TRANSFORMATION
 24  NOVEMBER 2000



Two centuries ago, Karl Marx formulated a classical aphorism in his Theses on Feuerbach when he said that the philosophers have only 
interpreted the world in various ways; the point, however, is to change it.In other words, it is good for many creative thinkers to 
develop revolutionary-sounding phrases and to put together programmes of action. These may indeed be useful in the development of political 
consciousness. But real liberating consciousness is, as it was from the beginning, a social product. It will remain so for ever.

The revolutionary aim, therefore, is not merely to articulate revolutionary words or to merely change consciousness. It is to change social 
life itself. Hence the ANC slogan : A Better Life for All. In a letter he wrote to Bracke in 1875, Marx articulated this as follows: every 
step of real movement is more important than a dozen programmes. In short, to achieve the strategic objectives of our revolution, we need 
less of talking and of documented programmes of Action. What we need to be is to become a nation at work making real steps for change.

As we all know, our transformation is not taking place on a historically vacant ground. As such we need at all times that we take a step to 
determine whether the necessary conditions exist or not. Revolutions that ignored material conditions learned the painful way. This has 
been demonstrated in Kampuchea by the Pol Pot and Ieng Sary regime where a genocide waged against intellectuals and cultural values led to 
one huge concentration camp. Todays democratic Kampuchea is engaged in reversing such set-backs.

Lenin is quoted as having said in May 1918 : I cannot recall the work of a single socialist or the opinion of a single socialist on future 
socialist society, which pointed on this concrete, practical difficulty that would confront the working class when it took 
power&#133;&#133;.. (Lenin as Head of Government, p.42f).The same can be said by the ANC Government and discerning activists of our land. 
The challenges far surpass our wildest imagination.

In order for our programme to succeed, common objectives must be developed.All allied organization must be united by the common goal of 
national liberation.Although the long-term goal of both COSATU and the SACP is the creation of socialism, the point of coincidence with the 
ANC is their immediate goal which happens to be the strategic objective of the ANC, National Liberation. Within the Tripartite Alliance, 
none of the 3 Allies doubts whether National Liberation is relevant or not. It is the sine qua non of the class struggle in a country 
ravaged by racial domination over many decades.

So the biggest challenge of our time is to transform South Africa into a work collective, a people united by a common productive activity 
at the factory floor, building site, in agriculture, at school, hospital, government office etc.The trade unions should take an active part 
in planning the national economy and implementing state plans. They should help plan production and social development. They should assist 
in the training of cadres and in managing enterprises and institutions. This is what the leadership of the working-class in transformation 
should be.

The rights and duties of citizens are not only the right to work, but it is everyones duty to work well. Citizens have a right to rest, 
leisure, housing, health protection, social security, education and the right to protect property.These basic socio-economic rights and 
duties are a must in our National Democratic Revolution (NDR) just as they are basic rights and duties in a socialist state.It does not 
matter how much people want to sound revolutionary when they accuse the ANC Government of having abandoned socialism, the FACT is, the ANC 
was never ever a socialist organisation. It has always been a National Liberation Movement.Because its members also came from the working 
class, the co-incidence in the rights and duties of citizens in an ANC Government and a socialist state should not come as a surprise.

But if transformation was going to be difficult in the Soviet Union in 1917, how much more to Africa after a vast complex of international 
crime by which, in four centuries, a total of fifteen million men, women and children of African blood were delivered into slavery, under 
conditions so hideous that another nine million are estimated to have died during the crossing. (Nolutshungu, p 5-6).

For more than three hundred years South Africa has been a microcosm that exemplified more than any other country the massive 
concerntration of white supremacist logic&#133;. (ibid.) For this reason the Nats produced an atomic bomb to defend white privilege. They 
manufactured chemical weapons to make African women sterile. Dr Basson tells the TRC they were even commissioned to infect cadres of MK 
with HIV/AIDS.

You may then ask why then the Afrikaners suddenly decided to give in to the ANC.The truth is they realized that if they remained 
intransigent they risked losing everything. After all the years of oppression, they realized that they could not control the tide of 
history. So they accepted a face-saving offer to negotiate their surrender of political power. But even for the ANC things did not go the 
way we would have hoped for. But such is a struggle. The belligerents do not get all that they fought for. Karl Marx puts this succinctly 
in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte : Marx says :  Men make their history, but they do not make it just as they please; they 
do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the 
past.(Marx; 1972, p.120).

The popular question in Conferences and in rallies is, the ANCs compromises, are they tantamount to selling out the revolution and the 
freedom of the Black people in general and the Africans in particular? A populist response will be a quick yes. But true revolutionaries 
will want to analyse the gains and setbacks in the light of material conditions. Their reply will be : the time is too soon from apartheid 
to the present to pass such judgement. On the 9/4/1863 Marx wrote a letter to Engels in which he says, among other things; In such great 
developments twenty years are but as one day  and then may come days which are the concentrated essence of twenty years.

What we are challenged to do in South Africa is not to undermine the importance of the Alliance within the Tripartite Alliance. But we must 
also bring on board the peasants and the Mass Democratic Movement (traders, professionals, civil society, religious communities, sports 
organizations, traditional leaders etc).These sectors were also victims of national oppression and economic exploitation. As such they 
stand to gain from the NDR.

Such a patriotic mass of activists will not only carry out the tasks of revolutionary citizens, they will also defend the gains of the 
revolution. The working class, not just as a class IN itself but as a class FOR itself, will, through its ideological unification of theory 
and practice lead this army for the final victory. That being economic emancipation and finally a Better Life For All.

The moral of this argument is that unless there is ideological cohesion in the forces of change, change is not possible. The knowledge of 
how the problems arose in the first place will assist in dealing with the problems.The Colonialism of a Special Type view of the ANC and 
its Allies assisted us to understand how the structures of white supremacy were constructed and whose interests they served. This 
understanding has also provided clues of how to deal with these structures of apartheid. But these structures are diverse and deep-
seated.They will not be wholly resolved in a generation. It is important to remember that political freedom does not automatically create 
social justice. In our country, as in the rest of the capitalist world, what our political freedom delivered to the oppressed, the 
authoritarianism of capital has taken away with the other hand. Political leaders are used as decoys for the cynical power which resides in 
corporate boardrooms and corridors of multi-nationals.

The ANC and its Allies must have fortitude and skills to manage internal and external problems.We must constantly resist being drawn away 
from the corporate colonization and empoverishment of our people.This is not going to be easy.What with sector-al interests and 
constituency politics. Most of us remember only our rights as citizens but not our duties and responsibilities. Our only weapon against all 
these temptations is ideological clarity.Our leaders have abundance of that.So there is great hope for our country.

Let the ANC have the last word. The Strategy and Tactics Document of 1969 warned : The revolutionary sounding phrase does not always 
reflect revolutionary policy, and revolutionary  sounding policy is not always the springboard for revolutionary advance.

Let us unite the masses of our people in a conquering national front of mass actions, a united front of democratic objectives, one that 
will not be defeated by any imperialist intrigue or ideological diversion of political opportunism.

FOREWARD TO TOTAL FREEDOM!

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