One of the allies of our movement, COSATU, concluded its 8th National Congress on September 17, a day before the publication of this issue. We congratulate the federation on a successful Congress, which gave the affiliates and the members an opportunity to reflect on various matters of importance to its members, the workers of our country in general, the federation itself and the next stage in the process of the transformation of our country.
We also congratulate the leadership that was elected at the Congress. We are confident that these workers' representatives and leaders will continue to discharge their responsibilities to work for the implementation of the decisions of the Congress, to defend and advance the interests of the workers, to strengthen the affiliates and the federation itself, and contribute to new victories of the national democratic revolution.
In the period preceding the Congress and during the Congress itself, it became clear that some in our country were very interested to see the ANC and COSATU at each other's throats, fighting against each other as opponents, or even enemies. Accordingly, they lost no opportunity to invent areas of tension and conflict between the two organisations, with no respect for the truth.
For instance, as part of this offensive to divide the Alliance, they presented some resolutions submitted by one or more affiliates of COSATU as representing COSATU positions. This related in particular to resolutions affecting the functioning of the ANC. Accordingly, when these resolutions were not accepted as the policy of the federation, after open debate by the delegates speaking from the floor, deliberately misleading newspaper headlines were written, such as "ANC forces COSATU to back down".
Those who wrote such headlines know very well that the resolutions considered at the COSATU Congress originate from the affiliates. They appear on the agenda of the Congress as draft resolutions to be decided upon by the Congress. It is only after they have been adopted by the Congress that they become COSATU resolutions.
The matters on which the ANC is alleged to have forced COSATU to back down were discussed and decided by the COSATU delegates. This was a discussion of resolutions emanating from affiliates and not COSATU. COSATU, meeting in Congress, decided that it did not agree with the proposals originating from one or another of its affiliates. This had absolutely nothing to do with any pressure from the ANC, which was falsely reported as having "reigned in COSATU".
All this is a very simple, straightforward matter and very easy to understand. And yet those who would like to see our Alliance divided will not hesitate to communicate untruths to advance their particular agenda. Some of these are people who, in the past, even urged COSATU to break its links with the ANC altogether and form a so-called Workers Party. The question arises - why are some in our country so interested that our Alliance should be weakened and even destroyed.
After the armed resistance of our people to the colonisation of our country was defeated towards the end of the 19th century, the nature of our struggle changed. This found expression in the formation of the ANC, whose central task was to lead the masses of our people in the struggle to transform ours into a democratic and non-racial country. Interestingly, this perspective was first most consistently advanced by Christian priests imported from Europe, such as John Philip and Dr van der Kemp.
But for this perspective to succeed, it had to be espoused by the millions who were subjected to racial oppression and denied the democratic rights enjoyed by the white section of our population. It had to give birth to organisations that enjoyed the support of these oppressed masses, dedicated to the pursuit of the goal of the emancipation of the dispossessed. The ANC is such an organisation.
From its foundation 91 years ago, it saw itself as "the parliament of the African people". This meant that it would include within its ranks, and represent people with different ideological views, provided they were united around the goal of national liberation.
It also meant that it would be composed of, and represent people drawn from the different social classes into which the African population was divided, people from both urban and rural areas, men and women, old and young.
By the time it was formed, a significant number of Africans had been driven into the ranks of the working class, landless and propertyless, and therefore dependent on the sale of their labour power to make a living. These workers suffered from racial oppression and the denial of democratic rights, in the same way as did the rest of the African population. Accordingly, these workers also saw the ANC as their home and their political representative.
At the same time, like workers everywhere else in the world, these African workers were faced with the challenge to defend and promote their own interests as workers. These include the normal issues of better wages and working conditions. For this reason, the workers needed their own organisations to pursue these issues.
Accordingly, they established independent trade unions specifically dedicated to the advance of the immediate economic interests of their members. Our trade union ally, COSATU, is a product of a protracted process for the formation and strengthening of such unions, to defend the interests especially of the African workers, who were exploited as workers, super-exploited because of their race, oppressed and discriminated against as Africans.
We have told this story to make the point that the alliance between the ANC and COSATU is neither new nor imposed on their respective members and our country because of some special resolution adopted by some group of people, for ideological or other reasons. It is a natural outcome of the evolution of our society and an expression of the united response of the oppressed to that oppression.
Among other things, these meant that members and leaders of the ANC would, simultaneously, be members and leaders of the trade unions. Similarly, members and leaders of the trade unions would be members and leaders of the ANC.
Naturally, the ANC, the political representative of all the African people, had to be interested in the improvement of the economic conditions of these masses. It therefore had to be interested in the organisation of the African workers into strong trade unions capable of fighting effectively for the improvement of these economic conditions.
It also had to be interested that the workers organised into these trade unions should unite across the individual trade union boundaries, to form a solid block that could act together to advance the common economic interests of the workers as a whole. Hence it has always supported the coming together of the various unions, as expressed to COSATU, which is a federation of different unions, as was SACTU, the predecessor of COSATU.
The ANC has also been interested that the oppressed workers should use their organised strength to intensify the political struggle for national liberation. For this additional reason, it has therefore been interested that the workers united nationally in one federation, should share a common political vision for the political emancipation of the workers and the people as a whole. For many decades, it has therefore seen the workers as a central and leading component part of the mass army of revolution, on whose actions depended the possibility to gain victory over the forces of white minority domination.
Simultaneously, the organised workers, both in their individual unions and their federation, were interested in their political liberation. They knew that this had to be achieved together with the rest of the African people, and could not be realised outside the context of the national liberation of all who were oppressed and discriminated against.
The African trade unions and their federations have therefore also been committed to a strong ANC capable of leading all the African and oppressed people to victory over the system of white minority domination. At the same time, they relied on the ANC to mobilise the masses of our people to support the organised workers in their own struggles for the improvement of their economic conditions.
The foregoing is what informs the alliance and relationship between the ANC and COSATU. The organic links between the two organisations arise not from conference resolutions, but from the historic evolution of our society and struggle. The victory we scored in 1994, for which the workers organised in COSATU played a leading role, in their own and in the national interest, did not change the fundamental situation that had informed the relationship between the ANC and the progressive trade union movement over many decades.
Some of those who seek the weakening and destruction of our Alliance have sought to use the fact of the victory of the democratic revolution to advance the thesis that the Alliance has served its purpose. These have argued that now that South Africa is free from apartheid rule, the ANC, the SACP and COSATU should go their separate ways.
Some have even sought to disguise their intentions by pretending to be great champions of democracy, arguing that such a break-up of the Alliance would strengthen democracy in our country. This has also been an inherent part of the argument that the ANC should cease to be a movement for national liberation and become a political party.
The argument has also been advanced that the period of "struggle politics" is now over. Those who fight for the completion of the national democratic revolution, for the advancement of the purposes of the national liberation struggle, have been denounced as "Africanist", with this categorisation used to suggest a chauvinist nationalism.
The fact of the matter however is that the national democratic revolution has not met all its goals. That is why we are focused on the challenge of eradicating the legacy of colonialism and apartheid. What we have said about the fact that our country is characterised by the coexistence of a "first world" and a "third world" economy is part of our approach to the central matter of this legacy.
All this means that the task of liberating the masses of our people from a racially based socio-economic system has not fully been achieved. In turn, this means that the objective socio-economic situation that brought the ANC and the progressive trade union movement together over many decades has not disappeared. This is what makes it necessary that the ANC and COSATU should continue to work together as allies.
Quite correctly, COSATU is deeply concerned about the high levels of unemployment in our country. This is correct from the immediate point of view that this creates the possibility for the unemployed to be used to depress the wages of the employed, and imposes a burden on the employed to support large numbers of dependants, relying on the wages of the employed.
It is also correct because one of the critical tasks of the national democratic revolution is to eradicate poverty and underdevelopment, which, in the main, continue to afflict those who were oppressed. We will not be able to address this poverty unless we overcome the problem of unemployment. The eradication of poverty will not be achieved merely through social grants.
And yet the structural unemployment we experience is part of the colonial and apartheid legacy. Historically, the South African economy developed on the basis of cheap and unskilled African labour. This policy resulted in the building up of a large pool of such workers. But as the economy has evolved, it has grown to depend less and less on such workers, demanding skilled and educated workers.
That is why, today, we have moved decisively to ensure that our working population acquires the necessary skills. This is an integral part of the sustained offensive of the national democratic revolution to eradicate the legacy of apartheid and racism. This emphasises precisely the point of the dialectical interconnection between the goal of national liberation and the economic demands of the working people. It confirms the vital importance of the alliance between the ANC and COSATU.
The 8th National Congress of COSATU defeated the campaign to drive wedges between the ANC and COSATU, and thus weaken the continuing struggle for the realisation of the goals of the national democratic revolution. It reaffirmed that our Alliance has a continuing responsibility to lead our country as it pursues a people's contract to push back the frontiers of poverty. It took decisions pointing the way forward as we work to achieve this objective.
Its decisions will strengthen the affiliated unions and the federation, our Alliance, and our capacity to meet the aspirations of the masses of our people. We congratulate the affiliates, the members and the leaders of COSATU for the important results they produced at the 8th National Congress.
