A huge rally for the striking National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA). The 200,000 workers strike has spread to other industries including chemicals and may affect mining., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.
NUMSA on ANC’s 101 Anniversary
January 8, 2013
The class oriented and red metalworkers – all of us as loyal and disciplined activists and Cadres of the ANC – we send our revolutionary and best wishes to the ANC leaders, its rank and file and supporters on this august occasion of the ANC’s 101 years of existence. For many decades, generations of workers and trade unionists in our country, along with progressive intelligentsia, women, student and youth formations and democrats, have helped in re-building and radicalising the ANC to take forward the National Democratic Revolution (NDR) as encapsulated in the Freedom Charter.
The ANC was formed on January 8, 1912. It was formed to unite the African people across ethnic divide, particularly the Black African working class, as a motive force of the NDR. Furthermore, the formation of the ANC was a response to the racially exclusive 1910 Union of South Africa settlement. Also the formation of the ANC was necessitated by the colonial dispossession of Black African majority of their land by colonist invaders.
Hence this 101 anniversary of the existence of the ANC coincides with the passing of the infamous Land Act of 1913, which sealed the dispossession of land from Black African majority by the illegitimate and racist regime of the past order. This calls on the ANC, as a leader of society and entrusted with decisive and overwhelming electoral mandate to govern to accelerate the redistribution of land to the previously oppressed Black African majority.
For more than ten decades, down to the present juncture, the ANC has led a selfless struggle for national liberation and people’s power, expressing the collective interests and aspirations of our people of building a non-racial, non-sexist, democratic and prosperous South Africa. The ANC continues to the embodiment of our shared vision of attaining the strategic goals of the Freedom Charter. Given the overwhelming support and deep loyalty it enjoys amongst millions of workers and the poor, the ANC is the only reliable and trusted weapon for our people to address the centuries old apartheid fault-lines and colonial wealth inequalities and land dispossessions.
As we celebrate the ANC’s 101 years of struggle, we are also conscious of the major advances or gains ushered by ANC towards consolidating our national democratic revolution since it assumed power 19 years ago. But these advances or gains are being reversed by the untransformed apartheid Capitalist economy which continues to reproduce the triple crises of racialised and gendered inequality, poverty and unemployment. This calls on the ANC to implement a radical political project anchored in the Freedom Charter, to nationalise key and strategic sectors of our economy in order to decisively address this socio-economic pitfalls faced by our country. A true and non-racial South Africa will not be possible if the wealth of our country still resides in the hands of tiny White minority group.
As we advance to the second centenary of the ANC, the key challenge faced by our movement is to address the scandalous socio-economic conditions faced by our people as evidenced by violent and daily service delivery protests, the scourge of corruption ravaging our country, the growing gap between the rich and the poor, and continues struggles by workers in factories, mines and farms for a living and unprecedented high levels of unemployment faced by the working class youth. Our people, particularly the workers and the poor, look upon the ANC to change this situation. The ANC remains their only hope, not our class enemies!
On the occasion of these 101 years of the ANC, as Numsa we commit ourselves to rally behind the elected leadership collective of the ANC under President Jacob Zuma, to actively participate in the implementation of the progressive resolutions or outcomes of the ANC’s 53rd National Conference, to foster unity within the ANC and the Alliance. As Numsa we strongly believe that a strong, active, focused and campaigning ANC is critical for the realisation of the goals of the Freedom Charter.
Issued by National Office Bearers
Contact:
Castro Ngobese, National Spokesperson: +2783 627 5197
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