Allow me to open our political reflections today with an analogy from Karl Marx’s Enlightenment Brumaire. In this essay, Marx is analysing the 19th revolutionary developments in Europe with a special attention on France and Napoleon Bonaparte.
Marx sought to demonstrate how the class struggle in France created circumstances and relationships that made it possible for a grotesque mediocrity to play a hero’s part – referring to Napoleon Bonaparte.
It is in this essay that he made the crucial observation that people make history, but not under the conditions of their choosing. But it is the analogy he uses in comparing “class struggle” to an Old Mole – Thakadu. He indicated that revolutionary forces would take parliamentary power, and this power would deepen people’s demands for an overthrow of capitalists. 2
Then he wrote, in Hamlet’s style, “Europe will leap from its seat and exultantly exclaim: Well grubbed, old mole!”
A mole, as we all know, digs deep into the ground and when it has disappeared into tons and tons of soil, one can assumes that is over with it. Underground, the mole remains alive, navigating the intricacies of stone, roots, and deeply buries carcases in the belly of the earth. But finally, it emerges out of the ground and we all realise it was alive all along.
It comes out bigger and at times, better than it was when it went deep into the ground. Marx is saying with the class struggle, just like with the mole – you will think it is defeated, but after decades, the oppressed come out, launching a revolution – a theatre of changing the living conditions of the working class.
We hold this assembly in a time in the world when the class struggle seems to suffer defeat after defeat. Globally, since the fall of the Soviet Union Left forces have been disorganised, disoriented and at times, completely defeated. A situation of hopelessness engulfed those who try to work on a radically alternative option to the capitalist system.
However, like a mole, class struggles submerge into the underground and the ruling classes continue in the assumption that, in Fukuyma’s words, history has ended, and we keep revolving with capitalism as the only game in town.
In our own country, 10 years ago all Left formations seemed to be eroding, collapsing, suffering internal strife and defeat. No other event signified this fact than the defeat of the workers in Marikana. The disintegration of the trade union movement and the radical Congress Youth League. 10.When the government of the day massacred workers who were asking for R12 500 living wage, it was clear the mole was submerged into underground. When the ruling party expelled the radical socialist leadership of Congress Youth League it was clear they had assumed to have not only killed them, but buried them deep into the ground, much to the satisfaction of the colonial capitalist establishment. 3
It is perhaps in this context that we must understand the words of the Commander in Chief when he explained the Central Command Team decision to disband all EFF structures in Limpopo. The CIC said our electoral performance here in Limpopo, in the Local Government Elections of 2021 signified that we are taking the COPE route – in that we reached a celling and now on a decline. 12.The decline is a serious dent at the possibility of the return of the Old Mole, digging out of the ground for a revolutionary confrontation with the capitalist establishment. We must reiterate, unequivocally and without any fear of contradiction that the province of Limpopo is key in the EFF’s revolutionary war against the establishment. It is key even in the general mission to launch a tectonic shift in favour of the working class. 13.Needless to say, this province has been a strategic focus by the establishment because for many generations it has been a breeding ground of radical forces for the struggles of our people. Many leaders who have been catalysts to the national political direction of the revolution. 14.We recall the names of Charlotte Maxeke, the fearless feminist and priest who was born in GaRamokgopa. And that of Sefako Makgatho wa GaMphahlele, whose tenure as president of the SANNC saw its radicalisation by throwing all its weight behind the 1920s workers’ strikes, particularly in the mining sector. 15.The names of the Treason trialist Elias Moretsele wa Sekhukhune, and the Rivonia Trialist Elias Motsoaledi. The titans of University of the North, Turfloop campus, now UNILIM, like Abram Tiro, up to the Lion of the North Peter Mokaba, to mention a few. 16.It must therefore come as no surprise that the establishment knew that Left forces would rely on this very province towards the 2012 Congress of the ANC for its total shift towards a socialist path. That is why the neoliberal national treasury, through then Minister of Finance Pravin Gordhan placed the province under financial administration. 17.Our generation knows this to be true, for itself is a great beneficiary of the revolutionaries from this province: the Malema-Shivhambu Combination. We must perhaps say a few words about this combination because if we do not speak about our leaders, then we allow the narrative of the establishment and our enemies about them to dominate. 4 18.This leadership, was part of a collective of activists who adopted the mission of economic freedom in our lifetime, at the centre of which was the objective of total decolonisation through expropriation of land without compensation and nationalisation of mines. The two objectives that threaten the white monopoly capitalist establishment the most. 19.What we must record in this assembly about them is that they had an opportunity to sell out. They had an opportunity to compromise on the mission for various positions in government and the ANC. They had the option to tone down and stop being the irritating mosquitoes in a tent. Many who were with them in composing and campaigning about this mission have all sold out. 20.The dominant narrative is that this combination are Gucci revolutionaries, in an attempt to discredit their legitimacy and commitment to the struggle. But give me one SACP communist from Mantashe to Masondo who has passed the test of not selling out that the Malema-Shivambu combination has passed? All of them, combined, they are mere Batta-Toughies “wanna” be Revolutionaries who are self-driven, careerist hypocrites lining up as we speak to serve alongside the number one Murder of workers in Marikana. 21.None of these South African Careerists Party Batta-Toughies “wanna” be revolutionaries speak about total collapse of the capitalist establishment anymore. Our people must see them for who they are: charlatans, imposters and cowards who have sold the Communist Manifest into a Careerist Manifesto and the Freedom Charter to the Freedom Cheater. 22.We see them every day in parliament defending the murderous and racist South African capitalist establishment. Some even have the audacity to defend the reactionary, anti-black and anti-working-class Treasury policies and systems. Most recently we saw them protecting corruption and shielding a constitutional delinquent Ramaphosa who abused power on the Phala-Phala saga. 23.The toughies imposter revolutionaries are nothing compared to our leadership. Our leaders were offered not only positions of leadership in cabinet, but even the possibility of inheriting the entire ANC and SACP. We know that Shivambu was promised a powerful rise in the SACP, when they tried to stop him from being in the Congress Youth League national leadership. Some of these toughies imposter revolutionaries who are contesting leadership positions in the top six of the ANC discouraged him. Yet, today they want to be chairpersons of the same ANC they used to dismiss as irredeemably bourgeoisie. 5
History, world History, will record the Malema-Shivambu combination as a signature of selfless commitment to the struggle because when they refused to compromise on the mission of economic emancipation they were cast out, all security institutions of the state came for their lives – from SARS to the NPA; with the objective was to bury them alive, turn them into hobos. 25.However, like an Old Mole, they re-emerged and gave us this important vehicle of our movement on cogent principles to ensure that the class struggle attains a tectonic chance against the establishment.
Never ever as a fighter forget these facts – our leaders are Revolutionaries who have passed the true test. They never chose a rise in the ANC or SACP over the revolutionary objectives for total economic and decolonised emancipation. 27.In their name we propel you Limpopo to turn against your ways, accept the new day, the day of revival. Accept the new spirit, their spirit and never again drop the votes or withdraw from the daily struggles of our people. 28.The establishment is totally scared of the Malema-Shivambu combination because they know, these are the leaders our people have been waiting for. These are the leaders who will not compromise a radical transformation of society in exchange for friendship with white capitalists. 29.You cannot buy them, you cannot seduce them, you cannot divorce them from the plight of our people. They will never choose personal advancement over the revolution. They are disciplined forces of the Left and we have this province to thank for such a quality of leaders. 30.Above all, they are principal ground forces. They can mobilise, agitate, organise and build. This country has not seen anything like them outside the Congress Movement in the entire history of SA politics. The only approximation we can come to in comparing them are the founders of the very Congress Movement. LET THE DEAD BURY THE DEAD 31.We select them because it is consistent with Marx’s insight from the Enlightenment Brumaire. The role of individuals is important in history – without Lenin, it is impossible to realise the Russian Revolution. The Brumaire is about false heroes who pose in revolutionary situations, but only to reaffirm the status que. 6 32.Marx makes an important and famous observation that great figures or events appear twice in history, first as a tragedy, and second as a farce/joke. By this Kark Marx did not mean to say history repeats itself. History does not repeat itself. In fact, what he exposes is the total opposite, that people always seek to repeat history, but these repeats only result in a joke- a sad mimicry. 33.He tells us that a proper critique will reveal that what appears as a historic shift was actually not a shift at all. All attempts at social change face this reality, a defeat that coils back in the morning after when all returns to normality. In The Wretched of the Earth, Fanon demonstrated how the anticolonial struggle that led to independence is also such a tragic and, let it be said, a traumatic defeat. 34.He writes about the post-apartheid or post-colonial leaders and says; “When this caste has vanished, devoured by its own contradictions, it will be seen that nothing new has happened since independence was proclaimed, and that everything must be started again from scratch. The change-over will not take place at the level of the structures set up by the bourgeoisie during its reign, since that caste has done nothing more than take over unchanged the legacy of the economy, the thought and the institutions left by colonialist.”i 35.It is a difficult thing to accept that all those theatres of people’s power, with tens of thousands of lives lost, amounted to “nothing”. Yet, this is deeply true because the economic conditions of the oppressed blacks remain the same as they were during apartheid days. 36.The EFF Founding Manifesto in 2013 put this in no equivocal terms: “Those who fought the gallant wars of resistance did so to resist forced dispossession of land, wealth, livestock and heritage, which they had cherished and inherited from their forebears. More than 350 years later, the war of resistance has not been won, and the battles that were fought almost represent nothing, because 20 years after the attainment of formal political freedom, the black people of South Africa still live in absolute mass poverty, are landless, their children have no productive future, they are mistreated and they are looked down upon in a sea of wealth.”ii 37.There is no break between apartheid and post-apartheid, there is no new apartheid, or a return of apartheid. The 1980s cannot be repeated, we are not faced with apartheid. The hard truth is that the Revolution was defeated in 1994, but like a mole, it has been underground since, awaiting a generation that will ride on its promise of a thoroughgoing change – a tabula rasa. 7 38.In The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, Mark warned that; “The social revolution of the nineteenth century cannot take its poetry from the past but only from the future. It cannot begin with itself before it has stripped away all superstition about the past. The former revolutions required recollections of past world history in order to smother their own content.” 39.He adds that revolution of the nineteenth century must let the dead bury their dead in order to arrive at its own content. There the phrase went beyond the content – here the content goes beyond the phrase.” 40.This is still true for the 21th Century post-colonial revolution. The anti-colonial and anti-apartheid movements of the 20th Century relied on heroes, poetry and literary narratives of the wars of colonial resistance. They suffered the same defeat as their ancestors who resisted colonisation. This poetry must give way to a new poetry based on the future. 41.The post-apartheid African socialist revolution needs to strip itself of the “struggle” superstitions. Let us allow the dead to bury the dead. All superstitions must be stripped away: that ANC has revolutionary value, struggle credentials, with false opposites of internal ANC factions. There is no Zuma on one side and Ramaphosa on the other – these are false opposites. From Mbeki, Zuma, Ramaphosa is the same continuity. 42.Marx explained this idea of the evocation of the past and how at it can also be abused to preserve the status quo. He wrote: “Just when [people] seem engaged in revolutionizing themselves and things, in creating something that has never yet existed, precisely in such periods of revolutionary crisis they anxiously conjure up the spirits of the past to their service and borrow from them names, battle cries, and costumes in order to present the new scene of world history in this time-honoured disguise and this borrowed language…
He continues and said “the awakening of the dead in those revolutions served the purpose of glorifying the new struggles, not of parodying the old; of magnifying the given task in the imagination, not recoiling from its solution in reality; of finding once more the spirit of revolution, not making its ghost walk again.”iii 44.Let the comprador and com-tsotsi bourgeoisie caste, and its reactionary mimicry of revolution and revolutionary identity be exposed and isolated in favour of a genuine revolution. Let the dead bury the dead. Let a new poetry rise, where content goes beyond the phrase. The liberation movement suffered defeat because it did not have content for total economic emancipation. They have since been exposed as myopic phrase mongers. 8 45.A historic window of opportunity now presents itself and the Left must put aside all petty egos, unite over a common program for the total triumph over the comprador and com-tsotsi parasitic ANC caste and its white monopoly capitalist establishment. 46.Fanon has argued that “in under-developed countries, the bourgeoisie should not be allowed to find the conditions necessary for its existence and its growth. In other words, the combined efforts of the masses, led by a party and of intellectuals who are highly conscious and armed with revolutionary principles ought to bar the way to this useless and harmful [caste]”iv. Fanon was dismissing the idea that in post-colonial societies the development of productive forces ought to be led by the nationalist bourgeoisie. 47.This is because, as Fanon demonstrated, and as we have seen in our own postapartheid experience, there is no genuine black bourgeoisie. The white capitalist establishment has denied any development of this genuine black bourgeoisie by suffocating it through denial of meaningful capital investment. With its strict control of the banks and finance industries, the racist white capitalists have made sure a genuine self-sufficient black bourgeoisie does not emerge. Instead, it has sustained and rewarded a comprador/dependent black business clique, whilst its advanced com-tsotsi detachment has relied on state tenders to pursue its myopic greedy selfish interests. Fanon argues that: 48.“The struggle against the bourgeoisie of under-developed countries is far from being a theoretical one. It is not concerned with making out its condemnation as laid down by the judgement of history. The national bourgeoisie of underdeveloped countries must not be opposed because it threatens to slow down the total, harmonious development of the nation. It must simply be stoutly opposed because, literally, it is good for nothing.”v 49.The true alternative has come. We, the EFF are the opposition to the business as usual currently prevailing in the ruling party. In Nasrec is a festival of ghosts and carcases mimicking a revolution. Nothing will come out of there for advancement of our people – only more death, more ghosts – it is a graveyard – a politics of the graveyards. Let them die, let the dead bury the dead. 50.With our Malema-Shivambu combination we have a true quality and revolutionary leadership alternative that will shift our people to a better position against oppressors. Malema, Shivambu – these are the heroes of the proletariat. 9 51.Small minds think we are speaking about individuals – but no, in the MalemaShivambu combination we are speaking about the multiplier; MalemaShivambu Combination is a set of ideas, a collective activist identity and a political praxis for an alternative radical and socialist movement across the country. You cannot kill them, imprison them – they have multiplied into million flowers in every ward in our country. 52.By Malema-Shivambu combination we mean you fighters- you are the Malema, Shivambu of your ward, your factory, your school, university, village, town; let the revolutionary fever spread; Like them, never sell out. Like them, never compromise. Like them, always be on the side of the people. OPERATION TSOSELETSO 53.It is this spirit that we have been breathing since January. We have been engaged in a process that is culminating to this this day, in this Hall, the Ngoako Ramahlodi Sports Complex, right here in Seshego, Polokwane. This is Our day of Reviva – Tsoseletso. To properly appreciate the deep meaning of this, let us borrow the analogy of scripture about the Parable of the Sower. 54.Over the months, we travelled across the province sawing seeds of revolutionary consciousness. Like the farmer in the Parable of the Sower, we have spread these seeds everywhere. 55.Some seeds have fallen on the roads with no soil: people, cars will came and step/drive on them, birds will came to eat them, and they will not yield any plants. 56.Some seeds have fallen on rocky ground with little soil; they will die. 57.Some seeds have fallen on soil which contains thorns; it will come out, but it will not last and die much quicker.
Some seeds have fallen on good soil; here, it will grow and give us thousand crops, which carry more seeds. 59.The seed represents the revolutionary message about what the EFF stands for, what it seeks to achieve. It represents the need to be hard workers, to be disciplined and live in accordance with our Revolutionary Code of Discipline and always be found in the struggles of our people. 10 60.The seed are the many branches we have established and the teachings of how these branches must always have a ward-based programs to fight for water, roads, 24-hour clinics with medication, free early childhood development centres, electricity and the end to corruption and GBV. 61.Right in this Hall the some have come because they simply want to elect so and so. They have been mobilised in the name of this and that slate; – but slate politics are like the seed that falls on the roads which people step on to reach positions in our organisation. 62.These are members of members, and such people are only active during conferences – branches that are about giving so and so a position. Such branches are only alive during assemblies. You will never hear about them any more until the next conference. 63.They are full of faction-oriented fighters who are here in the EFF for themselves and their rise. They are here for the PR council seats or Legislatures. You will never see them during door-to-door. You will never see them in the community protests about water or electricity. 64.The seeds that fall in a good soil represent those who are here because what made them join the EFF is the situation in their villages and communities. They are here because they are hungry for change. They are here to find solutions for the poor and the oppressed. 65.These people will never wait for anyone to tell them to mobilise against oppressors in communities. You don’t have to tell them to fight for the betterment of their communities. They are not members of members; they are members of the EFF and they seek change. 66.Ask yourself fighter, have I accepted the seed? In this day of Revival, we say to you open your heart and allow the fire of the revolution to enter. Never forget the seed, the message; you must grow and produce fruits with more seeds. You must be the Malema and Shivambu of your communities. 67.The Malema-Shivambu combination cannot be given money or KFC to vote for leaders. They cannot be bought with R200 or R2 million. They will never allow for such an important gathering to be about the career interests of individuals. They will ensure that our organisation gives us a leadership that will fly the EFF flag in every corner of the province. 11 68.They will give us a leadership that is not lazy; a leadership that will never say our villages are too far; be very careful of those who say gaKibi is far, who say Chakuma is far, or Njerere is not reachable. Stay away from those who will not arrive in Nkomo or Hlaneki village or in Mahlwelereng. Ask yourself, will they travel for 30 KM on gravel roads to reach GaMampa? Will they go and hold meetings under trees, with donkeys running around – just so they can spread the seeds of our revolution. 69.Isolate imposters who think only about themselves and are only active because they have legislature positions. When they do not have positions, they disappear or leave the EFF. Or worse, when they lose a leadership contest they simply resort to disruption. 70.Be careful of those with ANC tendencies, with money bags, going around, because they insult our intelligence, they think they can buy an EFF conference. They think we are for sale. 71.If you can buy conferences of the EFF, it means we too are for sale and one day white monopoly capital will buy the whole EFF and dictate to it what decisions to take and which people to elect. We must unite against infiltrators with money bags; they are here to destroy our peoples’ last hope. Isolate them and never give them room to breathe. 72.Stay away from liars; those who lie about recruitment numbers. Who say they launched branches, with a meeting full of people, yet in truth, they engaged in a signature campaign? Today they lie about branch meetings, tomorrow they will lie about public money, calling swimming pool fire pools. These are children of Ramaphosa who are here to spread the culture of mattrasses and couches. They are lost and their time will come, like the lies they speak, they will never last. 73.This is Operation Tsoseletso and from here on; we touch the ground running. We are will no longer accept fake reports, fake meetings and fake programs. Protect your seed fighter – never and never again must it happen that we reduce the votes of the EFF. 74.We have told you it is a violation of the constitution – do not weaken the last hope of our people. Our people want EFF; the EFF is you, it does not matter where they are, as long as our people are there, we must arrive and serve them with the best revolutionary discipline it requires. 12 THE WATER AND SANITATION CRISIS 75.It is a fact that there is a widespread crisis in Limpopo and one that has crippled this province far much earlier than the electricity crisis. The situation is become worse and there is no hope that under this government our people will ever receive clean water. In fact, this is a direct human right violation because without water, our people have been sentenced to death. Metsi ke bophelo – water is life. 76.This problem is a combination of both the incompetence and corrupt ANC government and white owned farms and mines who divert rivers into their private dams. This deprives millions of households of access to even the natural streams provided by rivers. 77.With high unemployment, those who depend on subsistence farming, cannot farm for themselves with no water. Their animals starve or have to travel far just to get access to streams. Rivers that used to overflow are dry even in rainy seasons because water is diverted by white owned farmers. 78.In Giyani our people have been robbed of sustainable water by Lepelle Northern Water officials and contractors hired by the department of Water and Sanitation resulting in the loss of R3 billion meant for the Giyani Water Project, commissioned in 2014. This is all the while 55 Giyani villages such as in Siyandhani, Dzingi-Dzingi, Basani, Nkomo and others do not have running water. 79.The white owned company ZZ2, which is the country’s biggest tomato producer, made unapproved alterations around the Middle Letaba Dam, affecting the flow of water to households in Giyani. This is a serious phenomenon in many villages around the province. Over and above the incompetence of the ANC government to build or even sustain the existing water infrastructure, white farmers are literally diverting crucial rivers into their own private farms and dams. 80.In Mopani, only 32% of the households have piped water inside their yards, while 15.7% have access to a flush or chemical toilet. About 76% of the population use pit toilets in the district. 81.Contactors have looted millions and left the residence of Ga-Phaahla in Sekhukhune without water. The project which was commissioned in 2017 and set to be completed within 12 months has not entered seven years. The taps have run dry, the water infrastructure is being vandalised and stolen while the our people struggle to get reliable supply of water. 13 82.Right here in Seshego the people of Ward 37 where there are struggles in lack of water, you have water trucks that arrive in the late hours of the evening when elderly people cannot even go for access. This was so, until our councillor fought for more trucks to be used. 83.In Ward 10 Bloodriver, many households have not had water since the dawn of democracy and to this day, even when IDPs are passed to get them water, water does not arrive. The whole of Seshego, even households with taps, have had to endure both water and electricity shortages. That is why the EFF must never retreat in encouraging this community to shut-down the main Polokwane town until all the taps and households receive running water. 84.In Capricorn as a district, only 47% receive of the population has access to piped water inside their yards and 69% of the population still use pit latrines and 2% have no access to toilets at all. 85.In the district of Waterberg 15.35% of households use Ventilation Improved Pit (VIP) Latrines and 27.48% use pit toilets. There is permanent lack of water in Mahlwelereng: residents go for weeks without water due to corruption in the Mogalkwena municipality. In Vhembe 2.74% of the household in the district use flush toilet connected to a septic tank or conservancy tank, 15.97% is a public sewerage system and 5.96% are without toilets. 86.These are just few cases which deserve a mention, however far much worse is occurring in the province in relation to the water crisis. This assembly has to take note of this water situation and perhaps adopt a provincial Metsi ke Bophelo Campaing which will focus on Stayaways and Shutdowns to improve access to water. UNEMPLOYMENT AND INDUSTRIALISATION 87.Our economy in South Africa has been shrinking, in fact there are no serious industrial developments from since the days of apartheid. Limpopo as a province has failed to contribute to the production of goods and services outside agriculture. In 2010, the province’s GDP was roughly around 2.6%, to minus 7.3% (at the height of COVID-19). The COVID-19 crisis cannot explain the decline in the GDP because the province entered minus digits since 2016. Outside agriculture, all other sectors continued to produce negative digits. 14 88.The reality is that even the agricultural sector is on collapsed. In the early 1990s, agriculture contributed well over 15% to the GDP in the province, today the sector contributes only 3%. The tertiary services – all services that are highly dependent on paper-based revenue activities and don’t create jobs – contribute well over 65% of to the GDP, mainly government services.
You can therefore see, that Limpopo’s unemployment has been on the increase in the past 10 years. In 2010, only 198 000 people were unemployed. Today nearly 800 000 people are unemployed. Even more shocking, the number of discouraged workers remains the same between 2010 and 2022, averaging 350 000 a year. 90.This means there is a generation that has possibly never worked in its whole life. There are people who have never received a salary, let alone went to look for a job. This shows a structural problem that is breeding massive poverty across the province. 91.This is despite the fact that the province has a rich minerals base raging from platinum, diamonds and coal, even to gold. Treasury has promised to impose a higher tariff on the export of chrome to China to encourage local beneficiation, particular to revive the smelter industries. This has not happened despite massive employment opportunities that will come with this. 92.The mining policy still relies an massive extraction of raw minerals to be beneficiated elsewhere in the world. However, most concerning is the amount of government and police aided illegal mining, particularly in Sekhukhune. Our people single out Stan Mathabatha as the key suspect in the looting associated with illegal extraction of our minerals in those regions. 93.All traditional authorities that are based in places where there are minerals are being challenged by government, trusts, and face sponsored disputes. The Traditional leadership of AaPhaahla has been challenged so much that the body of the father of the rightful air had to exhumed to confirm a DNA association. 94.The High Court in Limpopo, presided by a judge president that ordinary people also accuse of being conflicted, refuses to recognise the rightful are even after so painful an exhumation of the late chief. As a result, the instability here allows those who want to loot through illegal mining to continue unabated. 15 95.The kingship of Bapedi faces the exact same problem due to the minerals they also have. Customary law which is clear about succession bestows the current Queen Mother, Tlhapogadi aPhahla as the precising head of the kingdom. However, and because she is a woman, they are bullying her in an attempt to unseat her from her rightful throne. 96.They have gone to fundraise some distant male who it is said was the son of the late king; a brother to the King who was taken by Covid just last year. The rule of the candle barer is being undermined because this instability allows them to continue to looting without. 97.The people of Hlaneki villages, who sit on gold mines have since witnessed the attempts by the provincial government of Limpopo to dispossess them of their lands through tribal authority disputes. Joe Maswanganyi, who perhaps wanted access to the gold mines, who is not even from Hlaneki lobbied for establishment of a new tribal authority just so as to gain access to gold. 98.The Matebele of KwaLanga have also seen their chieftaincy disputed principally by the Provincial Government. Their territory carries coal deposits and perhaps ANC com-tsotsi want access to them for their retirement. They had to defend themselves in a Court of law and won over the Mathabata administration. 99.The tribal authority had to defends its historic territories in court against a democratic post-apartheid government. This attempt is driven by selfish interests that have nothing to do with the collective development of the ordinary masses of our people.
There is a project by the current government of Limpopo led by Stan Mathabatha to erode traditional leadership in the same way colonial dispossession of land occurred. It resulted in the weakening of indigenous, disposing massive communities into congested land spaces to clear access of the extractive mining activities in Kimberly and now Gauteng.
Gauteng had communities, including Bapedi, Basotho and Batswana that were dispossessed and pushed into lands that were believed to have no minerals. Traditional leaders of Limpopo must come together and push back against the ANC government thugs who are encouraging and benefitting from the illegal mining activities. Perhaps this assembly, together with Traditional leaders willing to join this struggle must demand a Judicial Commission of Inquiry into Illegal Mining in the Platinum Belt and Gold posts. 16
The EFF is ready to work with traditional leaders in the name of protecting our minerals. We must demand that there is massive benefits by individual households in these communities. This must also be coupled with local beneficiation and city planning.
When we visited the GaKibi Tribal Council we concretely proposed that Community Trusts are becoming a thing of the past they the boards get easily corrupted and fundraise disputes of royal families so that they can individually benefit from mining benefits.
Let us no longer use Community Trusts; which treat blacks as collectives that must always be under tutelage and not as individual households with sophisticated knowledge of economic and business developments.
It is time to even demand much more percentages from these mines that must go to local residents directly. A mine must be willing to give at least 51% of shares to our people and the state. We must say to the companies aiming to mine Graphite in GaKibi give the residents 30% of the shares. This 30% must not be under some Trust. No, the Traditional leadership knows all households that belong to the surrounding villages as they also have PTOs.
The shares must be given to each family unit. This means a family will be able to receive directly, each year, shares dividends – this is true redistribution of wealth that will result in a massive demand boost and buying power. Imagine if 12 000 households receive even if it is a mere R200 000 annually? This is plus R16 000 per month. It is far much better than social grants.
Such a move could see an immediate economic boom which may lead to the municipalities of rural communities have better rates to collect and income to lead massive public infrastructure for schools, parks, sporting facilities, water, roads because its residence can afford much better.
When each household income is at this level, it will naturally attract more businesses aiming to benefits of such buying power, particularly in construction because the immediate thing our people will do is build better houses. This means more warehouses, construction workers, more malls.
The local beneficiation of these companies will also lead to massive jobs. Now not only is a resident of GaKibi having dividends, but they are able to get an additional paying job in the local beneficiation of graphite or chrome. It is time to build more smelters. 17
This assembly must resolve on a concrete program to demand better benefits for residents of Limpopo in the mining lands. We must work hard to defend the Traditional leadership and institutions as they are facing a war that seeks to eradicate them. They see them as blocking access to massive extraction of minerals to the total exclusion of communities. THE FUTURE OF CAPITALISM
Those who are proclaiming the end of history have not realised that the revolutionising of production tools announced by the advent of the 4th industrial revolution carry serious implications for the extraction of surplus or profits out of human labour – the only commodity that makes profit possible in the first place.
Capitalism, in its drive to maximise profits, generally sabotages itself because if you extract a lot of money by cutting as much wages of workers as possible, then you will end up with no one to buy the very products you want to make money from.
Capitalists, because they do not plan, rely on the anarchy of the market which puts economies into crisis because at the end, after producing a lot of products and cutting wages in order to maximise profits, end us with no market and a lot of wasted products and production.
The age of Artificial Intelligence will prove this fact above everything. If machines will replace all workers, it means people will not have money to buy the products produced by machines as they will be unemployed.
The transformation of the workplace into a machine (artificially intelligent robots) thus is not sustainable under capitalism. AI within production will only survive in a plan economy – where human beings rely on machines to produce and do so to meet the needs of people.
Put differently, it means if the majority of the people do not have money to spend, then the products that are making you rich will have no one to buy them. It can therefore be safely concluded that the 4th Industrial Revolution bring with it the end of surplus extraction, the end of profit making as a logical eventuality.
However, even before machines take over workplaces across different sectors and industries, the South African economy is already one in which a market is shrinking everyday due to high elves of unemployment. 18
This abnormality of capitalism is actually its key symptom and a seed of its demise. The sign of its unsustainability. We are very clear that life cannot go on like this – where production is based on profit maximisation as opposed to being based on meeting the needs of the people. It is on these grounds that socialism is actually an inevitable step from capitalism.
Planning, which is at the heart of socialism, is actually the solution to this chaos of the market. Economies, in order to grow, be productive and meet the needs of populations, must be planned.
In our country there is very little planning, and over reliance on the market for the solutions of problems already caused by the market – since the very market just means competition between greedy capitalists.
We argue that there must be planning by a democratic and corrupt free workers state to ensure that industrial development is based on meeting the needs of the people and not profit.
Our entire political vision is based on entrusting the people to run their own lives by distributing economic means of subsistence as much as possible to the entire population.
This, as our Founding Manifesto outlines, must start with realising the Seven Cardinal Pillars: Expropriation of land without compensation; Nationalisation of Mines and Banks, Free Education, Healthcare, Housing and Sanitation; Building State Capacity and Eradication of tenders; Industrial Development; Development of African Economy, and a corrupt free government which does not abuse security services
What we are conceiving is a democratic and corrupt free workers’ state that can lead to the total decolonisation of South Africa’s society economically and socially. Indeed, ours remains a racially stratified economic and social life.
This is the significance of Lenin to our theoretical praxis – we need not rely on the anarchy of the market and capitalist greed to develop and grow the economy. We also know the history of capitalist developments actually depends on a lot of state and at times, central planning.
Apartheid and colonialism were in many ways regimes that planned and executed racist economic development. It never made sense that successive governments of the ANC since 1994 relied on apartheid created capital to break economic bondage within black South Africa. 19
No wonder the ANC fails even to this day. Even in the days when the economy grew in some sustainable way, it was jobless and it made no significant difference to the living conditions of the black majority.
The other day, President Mbeki exposed that the current administration, led by billionaire and money launderer Ramaphosa, does not have a comprehensive economic plan at all for the past five years. They have literally been second guessing developments, clueless or most of the time, and simply absent minded.
This makes one to safely assume that all they have been doing in those so-called investment conferences is auctioning South Africa to the highest bidder. However, President Mbeki’s GEAR strategy, although it grew the economy, also failed to create jobs. GEAR trusted market forces, or “investors” to create jobs and it failed.
So, Ramaphosa with no plan automatically relies on the market, which means the result is the same as Mbeki’s well-planned reliance on the market – both rely on markets and both come down to the same result – joblessness.
That is why we must never be misled by cosmetic arguments between those ANC petty and nationalist bourgeoisie. Mbeki’s criticism of Ramaphosa is cosmetic and must be dismissed as a diversion from the true radical critique in line with the changing patterns of production profiled by the 4th Industrial Revolution.
The true benefit of this coming 4th Industrial Revolution is the end of work as we know it – labour and human intensive. Development of productive forces in our own country will have to rely on this fast-changing world of robotics – robots will be workers of tomorrow; but out of them you cannot extract surplus and planning will have to kick in if humanity is in any way to survive.
This follows the same curiosity in Western desperation for the whole world to move away from fossil fuels into renewable energy. It is possible that this has nothing to do with saving the environment as urgent as this question is.
The West’s investments are simply forcing the third world to rely on them financially. This reliance is critical for the coming wars – it has nothing to do with the environment. Anyone that can trust those greedy Western countries that have pillaged the earth to its detriment will be a fool. 20
Yes, fossil fuels are detrimental, but we cannot be forced into abandoning them by the West. Our country must find its own path, through safe technologies to exploit fossil fuels. IMPERIALISM OR GLOBAL BALANCE OF FORCES
DP and Fellow fighters, we have to ask a crucial question as to what does the Russia-Ukraine conflict represents in the global balance of forces. Does it represent a changing international order that will undermine imperialism as theories by Lenin?
As the highest expression of capitalism, imperialism is capitalism on a global scale. Are the interests of Russia towards a socialist global order? The answer is somewhere in the uncertainty. We must adopt a critical perspective in this regard despite knowing that Russia is a historic friend of the global South. Our liberation is certainly owed to its people who contributed not just to South Africa, but much to the decolonial war and cause.
It is not impossible to see Russia as nonetheless a key partner in the achievement of the transformation of global institutions like the Security Council and United Nations to become more democratic and representative of the global demographics.
Most importantly, Russia and China represent an important alternative to the global trade and financial system which is dominated by the West. A more democratic, multipolar world may emerge through the Russia-Ukraine conflict which allows a space for an even alternative developmental path along the lines of Vietnam, China and Cuba.
The suffocation of Cuba may finally come to an end with a much unipolar global order. Palestine and Western Sahara may finally have a fighting chance. Above all, Africa has an even better chance to strengthen its economic and trade relations with global forces that appreciate a nonneoliberal path to economic development.
It is a fact that Putin is confronting the world war alliance NATO whose existence has been to bully nations in the world. Ukraine is a proxy of this global NATO establishment. AFRICAN UNITY
African unity under these circumstances is very crucial. We are unable to retreat on all effort to unite the continent. Africa is too rich to be divided. It is too gifted to hate itself. 21
Finally, fighters, let us reiterate that we are Africans and we will never apologise for demanding one Africa. Let us clarify that our position that there must be African Unity is no licence for lawlessness from anyone.
No one must go anywhere in the continent to perpetuate crime and murder. Wherever you are in Africa you must respect human life, work towards its development, the freedom of its people from bondage and poverty.
Indeed, we have a problem in our country where our government is trying to convince us that the cause of our poverty, unemployment and underdevelopment are our fellow Africans
The same corrupt, incompetent ANC which has rundown all our public infrastructure through corruption now wants us to turn on other poor people and call them the cause of our problems
The problem with this is that we spend the next few years trying to finish each other as poor people whilst they, the ANC take more money that should have renovated and build more hospitals to their own pockets.
Yes, we must demand our fellow Africans to live in harmony within our communities. We must fight against all who sell drugs, foreign or local. We must fight against selling of harmful food whether it comes from locals or freeing nationals.
But we must not wake up in the morning and buy into the lie that our problems are caused by poor people from Zimbabwe or Lesotho. We must refuse to be dominated by any gangsters from anywhere; but this in no way means we must accept that we are poor, and our infrastructure is debilitated by our fellow Africans
Our problem is the incompetent, corrupt and nepotistic ANC together with White Monopoly Capitalism. The sooner we confront this, the less we keep killing each other as poor and black people.
However, African Unity is actually the best solution to Africa’s economic success. A united Africa will never lack water, electricity, land, food, gold, diamonds, platinum and general peace. 22
They do not want us to unite because our disunity allows them to pillage our continent for everyone else’s benefit. The West is uniting; North America, Europe are united. Russia is one unit; China is one unit you name them. And this unity allows them to stage powerful agendas on a global platform.
The EFF must advocate for this unity by making sure we politicise all who stay and visit us from the rest of the continent so they can go back and also launch the economic emancipation movement towards African unity and integration. GENDER BASED VIOLENCE AND THE WOMEN QUESTION
Our revolution is also a revolution to change the treatment of women in society. The EFF cannot join society by undermining, overlooking and marginalising women. It is high time that women fighters take advantage of their majority within the movement
As women never allow yourselves to always be deputies for men in the EFF. The tendency that we must always be led by men must come to an end. The fact is that the EFF on the ground is actually mostly built by women.
In this operation Tsoseletso we have witnessed more women build our movement than men. It is women who patiently work the ground. They are more reliable and productive. Often, men arrive at the final hour
Like when leadership is being discussed, they use their masculinity and cultural advantage to speak down on women. They make leadership the matter of masculine and patriarchal authority and not hard work.
Women must rise in the EFF. Women must rise right here in this Assembly and take their rightful place. Never doubt your intelligence, authority and efficiency – whoever does not want women leadership is free to leave the EFF.
As leadership is discussed, do not be scared to call a women only caucus and discuss leadership in favour of transforming the EFF culture of women deputies. 23
It can stop with you Limpopo; refuse to be dominated simply because you are women. If you can do door-to-door why can’t you be chairs and secretaries. Why are these men always giving you a men option as leaders?
The fight against GBV must start in this assembly. If we can trust, respect and believe in women here inside the EFF, then we can teach society to do the same.
This assembly, must accordingly welcome the War Council resolution that the CCT deployed must intervene if any assembly gives elections result into a male only top 5
This assembly must not use the top 5 to marginalise women. We do not want less than two women in the top 5. If there are no women nominations, we will not go to elections. If results come with only one woman, we will impose another one from the same candidates
If the election results are all male, we will impose at least two women. If you do not agree with these resolutions, you are free to leave the EFF. We are not going to use women to work the ground and when leadership is being elected, only men are seen on the top. It stops with our movement; here women shall lead, because women are indeed great leaders.
Fighters, the terrorism against women and the girlchild is real. Rape, which is accompanied by brutal murder is being normalised against women. The EFF has to take a radical stand and lead from the front.
A fighter who rapes, abuses women, sexually harasses women is not a fighter. They must be exposed, marginalised and expelled from our ranks.
We must take the struggle back to our communities, starting with police stations. It is time to expose all police officers who do not take GBV cases seriously and demand their immediate dismissals.
Many women who are abused by men report cases and are never taken seriously by our criminal justice system. It is time to demand quick resolution of GBV cases, at least once a month, we must march to police stations and the NPA and demand quick resolution of GBV cases. Those who kill women must be arrested and jailed or be faced with the wreath of our people
Those who beat up women trusting that they will be given police bails, or mere protection orders which they violate in a matter of days must be taken to task. Any police station that engages in such must be visited and any police officer who did so, must lose their job with immediate effect. 24 CONCLUSION
In conclusion fighters, DP, commissars and our honoured guests, allow us to register our deepest gratitude for the work executed over the months by all fighters. There are no perfect assemblies. We must applaud your discipline and dedication
You were the first to pass the 1 million membership target. You, with your honest and hard work have ensured we arrive in this day of revival. You have built from scratch; when the disbandment happened, others may have thought that it is finished with you. But like an Old Mole, Thakadu, you have emerged.
You children of Karl Marx must now launch the Year of Voter Registration. There is no way we are going to improve results in 2024 if we do not register here in Limpopo at least 500 000 new voters. The year 2023 is the Year of Voter Registration and Mass Political Education.
We must turn all our 1 million members into activists with clear political content.
We thank you and we ask you, open your heats and the revival take root. Protect the revolutionary mission in your hearts. Protect and nurture your seeds. Never let anyone steal it, kill it or destroy it.
Protect the EFF, even against your ambitions. Never, ever let your personal ambitions rise above the collective and the unity of our movement. Remember always; The best amongst us is those who keep us untied in action.
Let us always love one another as our constitution demands of us. Let us always love our people; above all we must unleash radical programs to keep the fire burning in Limpopo. Pele ka EFF, Pele!
