O n 6 April, the day before the publication of the next edition of ANC TODAY, we will commemorate the 27th anniversary of the execution in 1979 of that great hero of our people, Solomon Kalushi Mahlangu. This important occasion will assume special significance this year given that this is also the year of the 30th anniversary of the Soweto Uprising.
Solomon Mahlangu was a product of that historic uprising, which the apartheid regime tried to suppress in the most brutal manner. This led Solomon to leave our country in 1976 to join Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) to become an armed combatant for our liberation.
In its short biography of Solomon, the ANC said: "Thousands left the country in the face of this repression. They left to carry on the struggle from outside the country. Nineteen year-old Solomon Kalushi Mahlangu was among them. He left his home in the night, not telling even his mother where he was going or if he would ever return. Determined to fight for change, he sought training as a soldier. A year later, he returned home as a cadre of the armed wing of the African National Congress, Umkhonto we Sizwe..."
Speaking of this mission, one of the then commanders of MK, and later Chief of the SA National Defence Force, Siphiwe Nyanda, said that Solomon Mahlangu returned to South Africa "to join the thousands of school kids who were definitely going to remember the day with protests. This time the leaders (of the ANC) decided the youth would be facing the armed (apartheid) police and army with their own arms...(Solomon) knew from the underground work he had been trained for, how important discipline was for missions to be successful. He was a quiet, unassuming, disciplined young man who would today be part of the national defence force, protecting the country."
Unfortunately, Solomon was captured by the apartheid forces soon after his return and therefore could not carry out his mission. As an apartheid court sentenced him to death in 1978, he shouted - Amandla! His now famous last words before his jailers took him to the gallows on 6 April 1979, then only 23 years old, were - "My blood will nourish the tree that will bear the fruits of freedom. Tell my people that I love them. They must continue the fight."
Though he did not have the opportunity to ensure that, on the 1st anniversary of the Soweto Uprising our youth faced the armed apartheid police and army with their own arms, through his courage and willingness to sacrifice, Solomon Mahlangu inspired hundreds of thousands of young people to emulate his example. Thus did his blood indeed nourish the tree that has borne the fruit of our freedom.
It was therefore most fitting that last year, through our Government, the nation conferred on Solomon Mahlangu the highest national award for bravery - The Order of Mendi for Bravery (in Gold). This reflected the high esteem in which the nation holds this brave young hero, as was indicated in 1979 by our late President, Oliver Tambo, when he said:
"In his brief but full life Solomon Mahlangu towered like a colossus, unbroken and unbreakable, over the fascist lair. He, on whom our people have bestowed accolades worthy of the hero-combatant that he is, has been hanged in Pretoria like a common murderer. Alone the hangmen buried Solomon, bound by a forbidding oath that his grave shall remain forever a secret, because, in his death the spirit of Solomon Mahlangu towers still like a colossus, unbroken and unbreakable, over the fascist lair.
"To malign him, to malign his comrades and his organisations which have yet to discharge their historic mission, and which will avenge the assassination of this and other prisoners of war, the fascist tyrants put out the story that Solomon had ceased to be as we know him, brave, confident and fearless of death. But we knew they lied.
"Now the whole world knows that he approached the gallows as befits a loyal and disciplined combatant of Umkhonto we Sizwe, sworn to liberate his people whatever the cost, as that Solomon who had volunteered to serve his people until victory or death...
"Our people inside South Africa have done as we expected them to. Unequivocally they stood by Solomon to the last moment because to them he was a son, a brother, their product, his cause theirs, his death a challenge spurring them to greater efforts to remove the regime which continues to display such callous disregard of everything that is moral and just and humane.
"At the end of the day, the fascist regime of Botha and Vorster stood alone in front of all humanity, alone in its regard of the pursuit of freedom as a crime punishable by death, alone in rejoicing that a life so young and so full of promise had so suddenly and so brutally been terminated."
As we commemorate the 27th anniversary of the execution of Solomon Mahlangu and the 30th of the Soweto Uprising, during which many of our youth sacrificed their lives, we must once again reflect on the important question of the tasks of the youth. Fortunately, in this regard, we have a rich history from which to draw.
In the 1981 January 8th Statement of our movement, which we observed as the Year of the Youth, OR Tambo said:
"History has imposed an obligation on the youth of today to occupy the forward trenches in the final assault on the bastions of racism, apartheid and colonialism. As the late 'Malome' Moses Kotane said in 1968 in a statement to the youth of South Africa:
" 'At this hour of destiny your country and your people need you. The future of South Africa is yours and it will be what you make of it'. On the other hand, a people, a country, a Movement that does not value its youth does not deserve its future."
Our people, our country and our movement value our youth. All of us are and must be concerned about this youth that will determine the future of our country. Among others, that concern must focus on the contemporary tasks of the youth and what our society and movement must do to empower the youth to carry out those tasks. And as we have said, we must, in this regard, continue to draw on our rich experience.
In March 1944, the founders of the ANC Youth League, organised as its Provisional Committee, issued the important founding document of the League, the ANC Youth League Manifesto. In this document these founders, who included Anton Lembede, Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu and others said:
"In response to the demands of the times African Youth is laying its services at the disposal of the national liberation movement, the African National Congress, in the firm belief, knowledge and conviction that the cause of Africa must and will triumph...
"The Congress Youth League must be the brains-trust and power-station of the spirit of African nationalism; the spirit of African self-determination; the spirit that is so discernible in the thinking of our Youth. It must be an organisation where young African men and women will meet and exchange ideas in an atmosphere pervaded by a common hatred of oppression.
"At this power-station the league will be a co-ordinating agency for all youthful forces employed in rousing popular political consciousness and fighting oppression and reaction. It will educate the people politically by concentrating its energies on the African home front to make all sections of our people Congress-minded and nation-conscious.
"But the Congress Youth League must not be allowed to detract the Youth's attention from the organisation of Congress. In this regard, it is the first step to ensure that African Youth has direct connections with the leadership of Congress...
"Congress is destined for a great purpose and mission, but short sighted policies will cripple it and make it unable to rise to its destiny. To prevent this and therefore the setting back of the clock of African progress, African Youth must join the League in their numbers to strengthen the national movement in view of the fact that divisions just now are being sown among the people by sections of the so-called privileged few, while no convincing effort is made to narrow down and finally eliminate the gulfs that divide our people even by those who clamour loudest for national unity. Those who sow these divisions direct their activities against the national unity front in order to make the national movement incapable of expressing the wishes of the people effectively; they are the enemies of a free Africa.
"The Congress is the symbol of the African people's common hatred of all oppression and of their Will to fight it relentlessly as one compact group. Youth recognises the existence of specialised attitudes and, where these lead to differences of opinion, that must be strictly a domestic matter within the national liberation movement and must in no way be allowed to interfere with the national unity front. The ideal of national unity must be the guiding ideal of every young African's life!"
Thirty-seven years after the publication of the Youth League Manifesto, in the 1981 January 8th Statement to which we have referred, OR Tambo said that in observance that year of the 5th and the 20th anniversaries of the Soweto Uprising and the formation of MK, "we need to accomplish a number of tasks. We need to ensure that the millions of our youth inside the country -students, working people, the youth in the rural areas, young women, young Christians - these millions must be mobilised into the appropriate organisational formations for the intensification of the mass struggle. The youth must be drawn in even greater numbers into the ANC and Umkhonto we Sizwe, inside and outside the country, to become part of the disciplined vanguard forces of our revolution...
"The youth already in the ranks of the ANC and Umkhonto we Sizwe must use the occasion of these two anniversaries to improve their level of competence in all fields in which they are involved, whether political, military, academic or administrative. They must seek to raise their level of political understanding and their discipline, to become better cadres for the victory of the people's cause. They must use their enormous talent and creative intelligence to formulate and propose new initiatives for the advancement of the struggle and actively participate in the solution of all problems facing the revolution.
"The youth at Solomon Mahlangu Freedom College, which must develop into a prototype of the new school that we will construct in a liberated South Africa, must carry out their responsibilities in a manner befitting the pioneering role in which history has thrust them. The children at the Charlotte Maxeke Creche must be brought up to play their role as the new men and women that a free South Africa will need...
"The youth of our country, especially in recent times, have already won international recognition as dedicated and gallant fighters in the leading ranks of our revolutionary struggle. Their contribution is already manifest in the changed and changing fortunes of apartheid rule within South Africa. They are already playing their part in giving shape to the South Africa of the future."
The selfless sacrifices made by Solomon Mahlangu and countless young people did indeed radically change the fortunes of apartheid rule in our country, leading to its defeat. Through that historic contribution, they played a central part in giving shape to the South Africa of the future.
The Revolutionary Youth of 1944 helped to mobilise and unite the youth of our country behind the perspective that the goal of national unity must be the guiding ideal of every young African's life, and that our youth must rally behind the ANC, which was "destined for a great purpose and mission", and which was "the symbol of the African people's common hatred of all oppression and of their Will to fight it relentlessly as one compact group".
The Revolutionary Youth of 1976 helped to mobilise and unite the youth of our country to become part of the disciplined vanguard forces of our revolution, under the leadership of the ANC, serving as dedicated and gallant fighters in the forward ranks of our revolutionary struggle, while continuously improving their level of competence in all fields in which they were involved, whether political, military, academic or administrative.
Like the Revolutionary Youth of 1944, the central task facing the Revolutionary Youth of 2006 is to help mobilise our youth and people to act in unity to achieve the goal of the fundamental social transformation of our country, understanding, still, that "Congress is destined for a great purpose and mission".
Like the Revolutionary Youth of 1976, the central task facing the Revolutionary Youth of 2006 is to help mobilise our youth to improve their level of competence in all fields in which they are involved, whether political, military, academic or administrative, to raise their level of political understanding and their discipline, and to empower them to become better cadres for the victory of the people's cause, focused on achieving a better life for all and building a winning nation.
Truly to demonstrate that they are the authentic successors of Solomon Mahlangu, of the martyrs of June 16th, and the pioneers of 1944, the members of the ANC Youth League and the rest of the progressive youth of our country have a responsibility to carry out these tasks - the specific tasks of the contemporary generation of young patriots.
The gift of freedom bestowed on our people by the sacrifices of the youth of 1944 and 1976 has placed the additional responsibility on the youth of 2006 to defend and help entrench the value system that inspired the earlier generations of our youth. That value system was based on a set of moral injunctions that prescribed that our revolutionary youth must be inspired by one objective and one objective only - to serve the people of South Africa, with no expectation of reward in terms personal wealth, power, position or prestige.
The ANC Youth League, the rest of the progressive youth and our movement as a whole have a revolutionary duty to honour the memory of Solomon Mahlangu, the martyrs of June 16th and the pioneers of 1944 by focusing on the uncompleted and "great purpose and mission" of the ANC - which is to secure the genuine and all-round emancipation of all our people within the context of the vision spelt out in the Freedom Charter.
Those who act in a manner contrary to the noble and heroic example set by Solomon Mahlangu, the martyrs of June 16th and the pioneers of 1944, and seek to divert us away from the daily struggle to realise the goal of the genuine emancipation of our people, necessarily define themselves as being outside of and separate from the mass movement for the fundamental social transformation of our country.
That mass movement calls for cadres who are "loyal and disciplined combatants" for the people's cause that is "moral and just and humane", who are "sworn to liberate our people whatever the cost", who have the humility to serve the people as "quiet, unassuming, disciplined" young people, who are accepted by the masses as their sons and daughters and brothers and sisters, their products, sharing with them a common cause, who are defined by their practical deeds, rather than deceitful words, as "unbroken and unbreakable" colossi. It calls for such actions by the Revolutionary Youth of 2006 as would define them as true representatives of the heroic and glorious legacy of Solomon Mahlangu.
