South African ruling party youth league president Julius Malema has reiterated the call for the nationalisation of industries inside the country.
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SAPA AND MAIL & GUARDIAN REPORTER | JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA - Dec 13 2009 16:15
African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) president Julius Malema has sent a threatening SMS to South African Communist Party (SACP) deputy general secretary Jeremy Cronin following the former's embarrassing appearance at the SACP conference, City Press reported on Sunday.
"If you thought you have taught me a lesson, wait until you see what is coming your direction," Malema reportedly said by SMS to Cronin after he was booed at the SACP's conference in Polokwane.
City Press reported that several leaders within the ANC and SACP have confirmed the SMS.
Cronin would not confirm the SMS to the paper and would only describe Malema's language as "rather loose ... I ignore that kind of thing".
"We want to have a constructive relationship, not with individuals but with the ANCYL collective," said Cronin.
Last month, Cronin and Malema exchanged combative words. In the SACP newsletter, Cronin said that those who called for nationalisation of mines, such as Malema, did not understand the economics of the issue. Malema fired back, accusing Cronin of being a "white messiah".
Both the ANCYL and the SACP could not be reached for comment.
ANC president Jacob Zuma, speaking at the SACP's conference on Saturday, addressed the embarrassing event of Thursday where delegates heckled Malema and national executive committee (NEC) member Billy Masetlha, indirectly referring to Malema as "irritating".
The alliance is home to different people with different characters, who raise issues differently, said Zuma. "At times [people] irritate in meetings. They just have a culture of irritating. The critical thing is how do we handle such comrades? Do you also become an irritant? You can't."
Malema is known for his public attacks on several alliance leaders on different issues, particularly when they express opinions different to his. "The public outbursts and acrimonious exchanges are not in the tradition of the alliance, irrespective of where they come from," said Zuma.
After Malema's walkout on Thursday, he told journalists he was going to complain to Zuma about his "humiliation" at the hands of communist delegates.
There were fears before Zuma's speech that he would find it difficult to stand his ground and would probably shy away from the Malema-vs-communists drama, but he confronted it head-on, impressing SACP delegates who agreed with him on the issue of discipline within the alliance.
"If we believe that somebody among ourselves is ill-disciplined, let us deal with the matter. If we don't deal with it, we allow this sickness to eat the alliance up like a cancer."
Source: Mail & Guardian Online
Web Address: http://www.mg.co.za/article/2009-12-13-malema-sends-threatening-sms-to-cronin
Zuma addresses Malema-vs-SACP drama
POLOKWANE, SOUTH AFRICA | MMANALEDI MATABOGE - Dec 13 2009 07:04
President Jacob Zuma on Saturday read the riot act to the African National Congress-led tripartite alliance partners during his address to the South African Communist Party's (SACP) second special congress in Polokwane. Zuma, in his capacity as ANC president, told delegates that alliance partners needed to engage each other with "dignity, honesty and respect".
He addressed the embarrassing event of Thursday where delegates heckled ANC Youth League president Julius Malema and national executive committee (NEC) member Billy Masetlha, indirectly referring to Malema as "irritating".
The alliance was home to different people with different characters, who raised issues differently, said Zuma. "At times [people] irritate in meetings. They just have a culture of irritating. The critical thing is how do we handle such comrades? Do you also become an irritant? You can't."
Malema is known for his public attacks on several alliance leaders on different issues, particularly when they express opinions different to his. "The public outbursts and acrimonious exchanges are not in the tradition of the alliance, irrespective of where they come from," said Zuma.
After Malema's walkout on Thursday, he told journalists he was going to complain to Zuma about his "humiliation" at the hands of communist delegates.
There were fears before Zuma's speech that he would find it difficult to stand his ground and would probably shy away from the Malema-vs-communists drama, but he confronted it head-on, impressing SACP delegates who agreed with him on the issue of discipline within the alliance.
"If we believe that somebody among ourselves is ill-disciplined, let us deal with the matter. If we don't deal with it, we allow this sickness to eat the alliance up like a cancer."
Zuma slammed those who engage with fellow alliance partners in the media and on public platforms, saying the culture was "foreign" and should not be allowed to continue. "If we do so, unwittingly, we are weakening the alliance. We must be able to commit to and practise the culture of principled debate."
He said the alliance was too deep-rooted and entrenched to be disrupted by activities or statements of a few of its members. Zuma pleaded with delegates to help build a positive image of the tripartite alliance, because if the alliance was seen to be besieged with tensions, squabbling and conflicts, it would not inspire public confidence. "We must not create the impression that the alliance is in intensive care."
He, however, said the alliance was capable of withstanding any turbulence that stood in its way.
In his message of support to the SACP, Zuma said the party should stop seeing itself as "a pressure group" and instead play its role of providing "robust and profound intellectual and ideological debates" to the alliance. He added that the party should suggest to the ANC ways of doing things better.
He praised the SACP for always taking responsibility, reminding delegates that former ANC president Chief Albert Luthuli described communists as comrades who are the "most reliable, disciplined and always ready to sacrifice".
"If the ANC had failed, they identified with the failures and became part of the sharing of the blame. They correct the mistakes and share the successes."
Zuma challenged the communists to do an introspection of whether the SACP had "defined its role seriously in a democratic post-apartheid society".
Earlier, SACP deputy general secretary Jeremy Cronin said the party's membership was the largest it had ever been in the country, at just over 96 000, almost double the size the party was four years ago. The SACP ends its special congress on Sunday with the pronouncements on declarations taken after discussions that started on Thursday.
Source: Mail & Guardian Online
Web Address: http://www.mg.co.za/article/2009-12-13-zuma-addresses-malemavssacp-drama
Young communists flay 'drama queen' Malema
MMANALEDI MATABOGE | POLOKWANE, SOUTH AFRICA - Dec 11 2009 14:43
The Young Communist League will "meet fire with fire" in defence of its mother body, the South African Communist Party (SACP), going head-to-head with “drama queen” Julius Malema, the ANC Youth league president.
National secretary of the YCL, Buti Manamela, told delegates at the SACP’s second special national congress in Polokwane that those who insult the SACP and its leaders would be treated accordingly.
“Those who continue to call our leaders racist should never have illusions of receiving red-carpet treatment in this congress," he said.
In a public spat about the ANCYL's call for the nationalisation of mines, Malema said SACP deputy general secretary Jeremy Cronin was expressing sentiments that were similar to the ones previously expressed by “white supremacists”.
Malema walked out of the congress on Thursday after a spat with SACP chairperson Gwede Mantashe. Malema was unhappy that he had not been given a chance to address delegates after they heckled him and national executive committee member Billy Masetlha.
After his walkout Malema told journalists that SACP general secretary Blade Nzimande -- who is also minister of higher education -- should remember that he deals with young people in his portfolio, the majority of them ANCYL members. “We organise at universities. If we were to respond that way to him, he won’t like it,” said Malema, referring to the booing he was subjected to.
On Friday Manamela said the YCL, also known as “Ufasimba”, was not shaken by Malema’s threats. "Those who make the threats should know that the YCL is also there in every campus. We are prepared to meet fire with fire".
While he regretted that some ANC leaders were booed by delegates, he did not hold back on his criticism of Malema.
"We are militant, we are radical, but we also subscribe to logic and sense. We are brave about our views, and we can stand firm on those views".
Manamela said Malema’s tantrum on Thursday were driven by the fact that he was "running away from engaging in a constructive debate with communists. Any attempt to play drama queen and disrupt this congress will not be appreciated”.
Manamela also took a swipe at a group of current and former SACP members who are organising a conference of the democratic left, scheduled for March next year, singling out his former deputy in the YCL, Mazibuko Jara. "We are shocked why the SACP is still keeping [him] as a member. [The organisers of the democratic left] are travelling the breadth and width of the country trying to pull together, with no support, this stokvel of theirs. We hang our heads in shame that he is from our ranks".
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) delivered a message of support through its general secretary, Zwelinzima Vavi. He encouraged the SACP to proudly “hoist the red flag” and declare war against anti-communists.
“Leaving the ANC because we are upset by some problematic pronouncements from a minority is a betrayal of [the] masses that voted for fundamental transformation of society”.
Vavi also spoke on the expected discussion and the likely constitutional amendment to allow Nzimande to continue occupying the full-time position of the party’s general secretary as well as his Cabinet position. “We do not struggle so that others can be our rulers. This changed political environment is as a result our efforts. We are therefore not an opposition grouping or an NGO that is not interested in state power”.
He also responded to some ANC leaders who raised concerns about a communist takeover, saying the SACP cannot afford the risk of "subordinating the party to the ANC", adding that the changed political environment, now more friendlier to the SACP and Cosatu as the ANC’s alliance partners, was as a result of the efforts of the working class.
President Jacob Zuma is scheduled to address the congress on Saturday afternoon in his capacity as ANC president.
Source: Mail & Guardian Online
Web Address: http://www.mg.co.za/article/2009-12-11-young-communists-flay-drama-queen-malema
ANC Youth League 'disgusted' at Malema booing
JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA Dec 11 2009 11:57
The KwaZulu-Natal African National Congress Youth League expressed "disgust" on Friday at the South African Communist Party delegates who booed its leader Julius Malema at a conference in Polokwane.
"The ANC Youth League in KwaZulu-Natal is disgusted by the arrogant behaviour of delegates at the South Africa Communist Party's special congress who booed and hurled insults at our president Julius Malema," provincial secretary Bheki Mtolo said in a statement.
He said the ANCYL was starting to believe that the SACP was abusing its "renewed friendship" with the ruling party.
"Now that there is a culture of open debate within the ANC-led alliance, the SACP finds it correct to continuously insult any ANC leader who dares differ with their view."
Mtolo also "condemned" a statement by SACP general secretary Blade Nzimande, who rejected the ANCYL's call for the nationalisation of mines.
"The ANC Youth League call for nationalisation of mines is not opportunistic, but is intended for the betterment of our people's lives," he said.
"The tendency of the SACP to always label those that oppose them with insulting terms shows that their debate is devoid of any logic. This is a clear indication that the culture of progressive politics has disappeared within the ranks of the SACP."
Mtolo said Malema attended the congress at the invitation of SACP leaders.
"His attendance was a sign of a comrade who was willing to participate in the SACP discussion to ensure that the alliance is able to strengthen its strategic objectives."
"As the ANCYL in KZN we will lead an open revolt against the SACP if they continue to insult our leaders. We further call upon the ANC leadership to intervene and call to order certain SACP members whose behaviour has become unbecoming," said Mtolo.
Malema reportedly walked out of the conference on Thursday after being booed by delegates.
"I was unhappy with the delegates booing us when we were introduced," he told reporters afterwards, according to the Times newspaper.
"The environment is hostile and not conducive for persuasion because delegates have wrongly perceived ideas about the leadership of the youth league and the ANC.
"You invite people to your conference and then you just boo them and howl at them like that? We were humiliated in front of everybody," said Malema.
He later apparently asked ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe, who is also the chairperson of the SACP, to address delegates at an open session where the media was allowed.
The Star reported that Mantashe refused, saying Malema could address delegates in a closed session, but soon after it started, Malema stormed out.
He vowed to complain to President Jacob Zuma.
Malema said the delegates were "hostile" and he could not understand how they could boo him and ANC executive member Billy Masetlha, while a Standard Bank executive received a warm welcome.
"This is so shocking: that an alliance partner can be booed and monopoly capital in the form of Standard Bank can receive such a welcome by communists. This is a contradiction."
Malema recently angered the SACP by calling its deputy general secretary Jeremy Cronin a "white Messiah" whose permission he did not need to call for the nationalisation of mines. -- Sapa
Source: Mail & Guardian Online
Web Address: http://www.mg.co.za/article/2009-12-11-anc-youth-league-disgusted-at-malema-booing
Mudslinging at SACP jamboree
MMANALEDI MATABOGE | POLOKWANE, SOUTH AFRICA - Dec 11 2009 08:23
The South African Communist Party’s special national conference in Polokwane this weekend has seen the emergence into the open of long-underlying tensions between ANC nationalists and communists.
This point was driven home on the first day when ANC Youth League president Julius Malema and ANC national executive committee (NEC) members Tony Yengeni and Billy Masetlha were booed by delegates when they appeared on stage.
Yengeni and Masetlha are considered to be anti-communist by some SACP members. In the ensuing drama Malema was seen shouting at Gwede Mantashe, the ANC secretary general and SACP chairperson.
He was believed to be complaining that the ANC was not represented properly at the conference, as the ANC chairperson, Baleka Mbete, and deputy secretary general Thandi Modise were absent.
The spat reflects the tensions that have been brewing among ANC president Jacob Zuma’s disparate supporters for some time.
Malema left the conference in a huff and told reporters he will report the matter to Zuma.
“I’m leaving. They say they don’t want the agenda of capitalists but they have the wrong idea of who we are. I’m going to raise this with the president of the ANC.”
Yengeni followed Malema out, and was not expected to return.
Malema took issue with Mantashe’s response and the apology offered to him by SACP General secretary Blade Nzimande on behalf of the delegates.
“The initial response was wishy-washy. The apology was not sufficient,” he told reporters.
Nzimande delivered a political report at the party’s second special national congress in which he hit back at those within the ANC who accuse the “left” of wanting to take over the ruling party.
“The claim that communists want to take over the ANC is merely a rooi gevaar tactic, deliberately being played to try to consolidate the ANC as an organisation for elites and capitalists,” said Nzimande in his report.
He said anti-communists were trying forcefully to assert themselves within the ANC, especially after last April’s elections. The SACP congress should analyse the reasons for the re-emergence of the anti-communist tendency, said Nzimande.
“Not for us to lock ourselves in a defensive mode, but as part of understanding the terrain upon which we seek to build working-class hegemony in key sites of power and struggle.”
Nzimande said that after the political dislocation of the “1996 class project”, the term used to describe the pro-Thabo Mbeki group in the ANC, the new anti-communist tendency has become “more desperate, more brazenly Africanist, but without a coherent ideological outlook”.
‘Instead the new tendency is opportunistically using the historical documents and positions of our movement to try to assert its new positions, [such as] an opportunistic use of the clauses of nationalisation in the Freedom Charter and the vulgarisation of the characterisation of our revolution as that seeking to liberate blacks in general and Africans in particular.”
The ANC Youth League has been at the forefront of calling for the nationalisation of mines and other enterprises.
“What in fact appears as an articulation of the progressive clauses of the Freedom Charter is immediately betrayed by the naked class interests of trying to use the state to bail out dependent BEE capital.”
But Nzimande distanced the ANC from the anti-SACP campaign, instead blaming “factions”.
He said the SACP would step up its participation in local government by taking up issues affecting workers and communities as part of strengthening the party. “But we also need to win over the middle and upper strata among the black majority ...”
Nzimande said the new anti-SACP tendency deliberately sought to isolate communists by resuscitating an old and tired debate of “two hats”.
Dual membership and sometimes multiple membership has been one of the hallmarks and strengths of the ANC, he said.
In his opening address Mantashe shared his view of the proposed constitutional amendment to allow Nzimande to continue to hold the general secretary position while also serving as a Cabinet minister.
“My preference would have been the adoption of a congress resolution and [to] defer the constitutional amendments to the 13th national congress. That view was defeated in the central committee and I can therefore not pursue it,” said Mantashe.
He said the challenge facing the party was not a “Blade issue” but one of the party being a victim of its own success in having deployed its cadres to all centres of power. “All the national office-bearers are not full-time ... The challenge is how to ensure that the party improves its full-time capacity to do party work.”
Nzimande called for the SACP to reflect on its character and strength as it seeks to influence decisions in both the ANC and government.
Mantashe called on SACP members to swell the ranks of the ANC. “In the ANC structures we must resist all attempts to relegate us to second-class members who serve at the mercy of other members.”
Source: Mail & Guardian Online
Web Address: http://www.mg.co.za/article/2009-12-11-mudslinging-at-sacp-jamboree
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