Mixed+birthday+messages+for+SACP,+Vukani+Mde,+Weekender

Business Day Weekender, Johannesburg, 2006/07/29 12:00:00 AM
=Mixed birthday messages for SACP=


 * Vukani Mde**

THE poor comrades in the South African Communist Party (SACP) must be scratching their heads trying to figure out what to make of the mixed messages coming out of Luthuli House.

The SACP turns 85 this weekend, a fact they are celebrating with a party in KwaZulu-Natal (guest of honour Jacob Zuma). The African National Congress (ANC), which is a partner of the SACP in something called the tripartite “alliance”, chose to mark this august anniversary by taking up the cudgels against “our 21st-century Marxists” (that’s the SACP) in defence of the “national bourgeoisie” (that’s Saki and them).

“In this article we discuss the open war that evidently the SACP has declared on the black bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie,” begins the Unknown Author favoured by the ANC on such occasions.

“The (SACP) denounces these strata in our society as being ‘comprador and parasitic’, and therefore a negative factor with regard to the progressive development of our society. It goes further to charge that these ‘negative’ class and national forces have, to all intents and purposes, captured the ANC, obliging it to abandon the interests of the working class.”

And what is more:“The views expressed by the SACP coincide with those of the established white domestic and international bourgeoisie, many of whom are of the firm view that the black empowerment policies and programmes of our democratic state constitute an unacceptable interference with the functioning of the ‘free market'.

“In reality, this means that the SACP is opposed to the emergence of a black bourgeoisie, preferring that ownership of capital should remain the almost exclusive preserve of the white section of our population.

“This strange outcome reflects the difficulty the SACP obviously has, to adopt a correct approach to the national and class questions, as they relate to further advance of the national democratic revolution.”

To its credit the SACP has kept its mouth shut the whole week, resisting the obvious temptation to call this drivel what it is. No doubt they were as stunned as everyone else. Still in a state of shock, they surely didn’t expect this birthday message from Luthuli House: “As the SACP marks another milestone in its long and proud history, the ANC shall continue to value the relationship between ourselves and the party.

“The Communist Party has established itself as an honoured and leading force within SA's democratic movement.

“The moral conduct and intellectual pedigree of communist cadres, and the manner in which they have conducted themselves within the liberation movement, has earned the party a unique and central role in the ANC. Happy Birthday SACP! Long live the South African Communist Party!” Aaha …


 * From: http://www.businessday.co.za/Articles/TarkArticle.aspx?ID=2159537**

456 words