The+NDR,+soul+of++revolutionary+struggle,+Fikile+Mbalula,+Hlomelang

Hlomelang, Vol 2 No 12: 27 October - 10 November 2006
=The NDR is the soul of our revolutionary struggle!=

//"What this revolution still has to accomplish, is to overcome the legacy of a social system that was based on the oppression of the black majority. Political freedom constitutes an important part of this mandate. However, without social justice, such freedom will remain hollow..."//




 * Fikile Mbalula**


 * THE STRATEGIC OBJECTIVE OF THE NDR** is the creation of a united, non-racial, non-sexist, democratic and prosperous society. This, in essence, means the liberation of Africans in particular and black people in general from political and economic bondage. It means uplifting the quality of life of all South Africans, especially the poor, the majority of whom are African and female. The April 1994 democratic breakthrough constitutes a platform from which we have launched this programme of social transformation.

What this revolution still has to accomplish, is to overcome the legacy of a social system that was based on the oppression of the black majority. Political freedom constitutes an important part of this mandate. However, without social justice, such freedom will remain hollow, the pastime of those who can make ends meet. The emancipation of the black majority is critical if we are to make claim of the values enshrined in our constitution on equality.

The realisation of the strategic objective of the NDR demands more than passion, it demands a sober analysis of the obstacles and possibilities, an appreciation that struggle is a bitter and protracted process. It demands high level of political discipline and understanding of revolutionary theory and practice in the given conditions. Both our leaders and the people in general, must be imbued with the varied skills requisite for robust development and national transformation. Skills development remain critical aspect in our revolution, as this empowers our people to be party to the broad transformation agenda.

Similarly, leaders must sharpen their skills to lead a revolutionary phase that has become less difficult than fighting apartheid, but that has nonetheless become more complex. While we have developed various policies to lead us on the transformation agenda, we must continuously scrutinise their suitability to the tasks at hand. Policy pronouncements must come out of the real situation if they are not to become meaningless clichés. Revolutionary sounding phrases do not always reflect revolutionary policy, which is not always the springboard for revolutionary advance. Our dialectical and materialist approaches to analysis are forever relevant, and it is imperative that both leaders and all cadres must continuously revisit these basic tools of analysis. What appears to be militant and revolutionary can often be counter-revolutionary.

The broad environmental disposition is not of our exclusive making, where detours have to be taken they must not be interpreted as inconstant with the revolutionary objectives as outlined through the NDR. Critically then we must always examine both the pace and emphasis of our struggle, moulding the political consciousness of our cadres to reach new intensity through clarity on both ideological and pragmatic challenges. The art of revolutionary leadership consist of setting the pace, which accords with the objective conditions and real possibilities.

The NDR is neither a socialist revolution nor a struggle for capitalism; this should never be misconstrued as meaning our victory over apartheid regime was hollow. Rather that the democratic breakthrough was a necessary conditions for the struggle for total liberation.

It created the possibility for the realisation of our vision as articulated in the freedom charter, whose fundamental principle are non-racialism, non-sexism, democracy and the prosperity of all our people.

The question that has continued to elude the liberation movement is how we reconfigure ownership, accumulation and allocation of capital for the benefit of the poor. As it is, there is the danger that because of the inherent contradictions of capital in as far as the morality of capital accumulation is concerned, our programmes to emancipate the black majority as capital owners may be criminalized by the very same laws we have created.

We have recognised the symbiotic link between capitalism and national oppression in our country, and the stupendous concentration of wealth in the hands of a few monopolies. Therefore rendered trite to the declaration that national oppression and its social consequences can be resolved by formal democracy underpinned by market forces. Clearly the "blind" market forces need to be guided and be harnessed towards the bias of the previously disadvantaged in order to defeat the ends of racism in wealth accumulation.

Political power is not attained for its own sake, but to pursue given political and socio-economic objectives. The State is not neutral but an instrument to pursue class interests, and this is according to the classics of Marxism. The dominant feature in our thinking must be achievement over drama, the key words are ownership patterns and use of productive capital. There still lay currently the challenge on how we use privately owned productive capital to promote the general well being of our people. Whilst the ANC is government it does not constitute the ruling class.

We need to sharpen our understanding of the nature of the South African society, the ruling class and its relationship to the state. South Africa's social formation is capitalist, that implies certain property relations and specific mode of production. Our country's economy is rooted in a system of racial oppression and gross inequality that goes back to the origins of industrialisation. Therefore we have a predominantly racially based capitalist system, this being so despite the inroads we have made in reversing this legacy.

An important component of the South African ruling class power base has been its relationship with its originators, the imperialist in the form of multinationals. This ruling class does not rule on its own, it secures its position by forming alliances and co-opting other forces, whose interests coincide with its own. Therefore the matrix that holds this block together is the maintenance of the status quo with small alterations.

No ruling class except in the most pressing circumstance, will never explicitly articulates its material interests, it will rather pose ideological terms that either cloud or conceal the real issues. Therefore, notions about "democracy" and "freedom", are abused by the capitalists to effectively mean the exploitation of workers while nominally meaning the good of all our people.

Whilst on the other hand the majority of black workers continue to suffer from exploitation, starvation wages, misery, racial discrimination and still live in squalor and poverty. To allow this to persist is to feed the roots of racial supremacy and does not even represent anything close to the ideals of liberation.

Although formal democracy may present opportunities for some blacks and women to advance, it is dangerous to assume that some self-declared elite can deliver social liberation to a meek and grateful mass that does not participate in its own advancement. Without a radical programme, led by the democratic government, to unravel the skewed distribution of wealth and income, the social reality of apartheid will remain. That is why we emphasise that to break the vicious cycle of racial inequality across different generations, we must imbue all young people equitably with productive skills that would dignify their economic participation as equals to fellow citizens.

The creation of a new society will not eliminate the basic antagonism between capital and labour, because ours is predominantly a market economy, this being so despite our bias to aspects of a developmental State. The battles around political power are in the final analysis about socio-economic resources and their allocation. Thus at the core of any revolution is the issue of property relations. Our aim is to reshape the property relations in line with the non-racial and non-sexist principles, whilst simultaneously configuring them to serve the interests of the overwhelming majority of the people, most of whom are black and poor.

The task of the ANC and that of the NDR, is to resolve the basic causes of the national grievance wherever and in whatever form they manifest themselves. Indeed, as we succeed in doing so, new social dynamics will play themselves out, redefining the challenges of the given moment as well as the political permutations that are consonant with those new challenges.

The rising black bourgeoisie and middle strata are objectively important motive forces for transformation, whose interests coincide with at least the immediate interests of the majority. They are, in this sense and in this phase, part of the motive forces of fundamental change. It is critical for the ANC to guide these and other owners of capital to promote social transformation, mindful of the fact that such transformation will serve at least their long-term interests and those of society as a whole.

The failure to provide leadership will result to the reflection of previous racial disparities and gender inequality, with a coterie of mainly black men co-opted into the white courtyard of privilege. This will then be a continuing potential source of instability and insecurity for all of society, deriving from the same social grievances that underpinned the anti-apartheid struggle. The aims and objectives were never to sugar coat white priviledge, through the emancipation of a few black elite.

Our relationship with capital is that of the unity and co-existing opposites. Because through the creation of a conducive environment to do business the State objectives are those of expanding the economy and creating jobs, whilst capital objective is that of making profit on its investment. The maintenance of vigilance at all time cannot be over emphasized, to the extent that capital will try and use its powerful position to co-opt the movement to ditch its stated objectives of configuring the economy in the interest of the poor.

This is not to say the State is a spectator as it commands vast resources through the fiscus and public corporations which must be used to accumulate, utilize and allocate wealth in ways that facilitates growth and redistribution.

The festival of ideas goes on, let’s debate!



PRESIDENT: ANCYL
 * Fikile Mbalula**


 * From: http://www.anc.org.za/youth/**

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