SACP message on the occasion of the Young Communist League of South Africa’s Virtual Youth Month Rally - As delivered by SACP General Secretary Cde Blade Nzimande, 20 June 2020

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Jun 20, 2020, 7:09:51 AM6/20/20

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South African Communist Party

Message on the occasion of the Young Communist League of South Africa’s Virtual Youth Month Rally

As delivered by the SACP General Secretary Cde Blade Nzimande

20 June 2020

The immediate challenge facing the youth is the same as that facing the working-class. That is the challenge of overcoming the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, ensuring an economic turnaround through structural economic transformation, and advancing broader social transformation to rid our society of the crisis of social reproduction. This must be co-ordinated towards complete social emancipation, ensuring that we do not return back to the crisis before the Covid-19 crisis.

Against gender-based violence

Before I proceed on that score, I want to use this opportunity on behalf of the SACP to strongly condemn acts of gender-based violence in our society. I convey the SACP’s solidarity and sincere condolences to all the families that lost their loved ones as a result of the scourge of femicide. The police, the prosecution and the courts should leave no stone unturned. The perpetrators must be held to account, with maximum sentences. There must be justices for the victims of gender-based violence and the families that lost their loved ones as a result of the scourge of femicide.

One of the most important guides for any society in any part of the history of the evolution of the struggles for justice and equality, especially in relation to young people, can be captured thus: The youth of yesterday must always strive to build and guide the youth of today, and the youth today has a duty and obligation to learn from the experiences of its preceding generations. One lesson that the youth of today needs to learn is how street committees played a crucial role in confronting the scourge of gender-based violence, amongst others. In every street, and part of a village, communities know the women abusers.

The youth should mobilise to end the scourge of gender-based violence in our society. In particular, I want to reiterate the SACP’s call for equality in the socialisation and treatment of children. The boy-child and the girl-child are equally important. There must be non-sexist attention to both in their upbringing. The way both the girl-child and boy-child are socialised should inculcate the values against unequal treatment and gender-based discrimination. This should form part of our national effort to eliminate gender-based violence at home, in the community, in institutions of culture and learning, at work and in the economy broadly, and in every societal activity, including in traditional and religious institutions.

The material conditions of the youth and the need for a revolutionary response

According to the Quarterly Labour Force Survey released by Statistics South Africa in February 2020:

In terms of the official or narrow definition excluding discouraged work-seekers, in the last quarter of 2019:

the unemployment rate for the youth aged 15 to 24 years was 58.1 per cent;
the rates for young people aged 15 to 24 who were not in employment, education and training were 33.7 per cent for females and 30.7 per cent for males, amounting to an average of 32 per cent;
the unemployment rate for the youth aged 24 to 34 years was 35.6 per cent;
the rates for the larger youth category from 15 to 34 years who were not in employment, education and training were 43.9 per cent for females and 36.4 per for males, amounting to an average of 40.1 per cent.

As the figures indicate, the rates of unemployment and young people not in employment, education and training were higher for females than males.
In terms of the expanded definition which includes discouraged work-seekers, in the fourth quarter of 2019,

the unemployment rate for the youth aged 15 to 24 years was 69.5 per cent;
the unemployment rate for the youth aged 24 to 34 years was 45.2 per cent

Capital’s response to the impact of the Covid-19 crisis is worsening youth unemployment through retrenchments. Firstly, the retrenchments affect both the workers as parents and their dependents – who are mainly young people, inclusive of children. Secondly, retrenchments directly affect employed young people. We specifically mention capital as the motive force retrenching workers in its response to the impact of Covid-19 because in class terms it is a monopoly that controls our economy.

The SACP pledges its solidarity with the affected workers, without exception in terms sector. We call upon trade unions to set aside their differences, and to unite in pursuit of the common interests of the workers, and against economic exploitation and retrenchments. I want to take this opportunity, on behalf of the SACP, to reiterate our call on the trade union movement to convene a joint conference on the common interests of the workers and joint programme of action.

Capital is not holding back. Through its campaign for the state to cut support for state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and to either fully or partly privatise SOEs, capital is pushing retrenchments also in the state sector as well. Monopoly-finance capital has increasingly gained power through financialisation processes, capital and financial markets and dealings. This is occurring in a global atmosphere dominated by imperialism, which exerts pressure on nation states to adopt policies against the will of the people, especially the working-class and poor, in favour of profit maximising and capital accumulation forces.

At present, neoliberal structural reforms are at the centre of the policies pushed by imperialist forces and imperialist-dominated institutions and organisations, including the Washington-based IMF and World Bank, and the Paris-based Club and OECD. This agenda also affects South Africa. The repeated calls for structural reforms which are neoliberal in content are a domestic manifestation of that agenda. This is being driven by means including direct copy and paste. The neoliberal reforms include measures coalescing on weakening state participation in the economy and rolling back workers gains and deepening their exploitation in favour of profit maximising, capital accumulation interests. This will undoubtedly maintain and widen inequality, and goes against the Freedom Charter.

The youth needs to develop an understanding of the structural processes and forces underpinning its material conditions – such as inequality, unemployment, poverty, and exposure to alcohol, substance and drug abuse, criminality, gender-based violence and racism. Many of these and other consequences of the capitalist system are entirely blamed on government often devoid of a deeper class analysis based on the materialist conception of history and dialectics. While undeniably the state has a role to play, it is itself anchored in class divisions and class balance of forces, and so is its role, including policy considerations and choices. The youth should appreciate that it is an integral part of the class-divided society. Rather than fashion its struggles in isolation of class struggle, the working-class youth, in particular, should anchor its struggles in the working-class struggle for complete liberation and social emancipation.

The Young Communist League has a crucial role to play in developing a youth elaboration of the working-class struggle and mobilising the youth in support of the working-class. After all, the effects and problems of the exploitative system of capitalism affect the working-class youth and impact its future as adults.

Our liberation is far from complete. We are still a long way towards complete social emancipation. However, since 1994 our movement has made important advances and opened many opportunities for the youth, including in the sphere of education and skills development. The youth has also done its best to seize those opportunities. However, it has room for improvement and can do much better. The Young Communist League and the Progressive Youth Alliance are well-positioned to mobilise the youth against wasting time and the opportunities that the youth of 1976 did not have.

One of the struggles that the youth should take seriously is the working-class struggle to open the workplace as a training space. The youth should also take seriously the working-class struggle to develop national production through industrialisation by means of manufacturing expansion and diversification. The development of national production is very important for tackling unemployment and pioneering the universal right to work. Industrialisation should include linking agricultural production with food security and building sustainable livelihood, and with agro-processing and manufacturing.

In the same manner, industrialisation and raising the levels of national production to take care of the material needs of the people, especially the working-class and its youth, should include the transformation of the mining sector to support manufacturing localisation and domestic beneficiation of our mineral resources. This should be one of the key pillars to rid our economy of the colonial features such as reliance on exports of raw materials and dependency on imports of finished products.

We emphasise structural economic transformation in this message because Covid-19 is a health, economic and social crisis, and cannot be overcome without simultaneously advancing structural economic transformation and the struggle against the interrelated crisis of social reproduction.

In one line, the youth should see the struggles to achieve the advances sought by the working-class, including the all-important financial sector transformation, as its struggles.

Retrenchments at SABC

The SACP is deeply concerned that the SABC has served workers with notices of an intention to embark on retrenchments, and expresses working-class solidarity with the affected workers. The SACP has worked with organised workers, especially the Cosatu affiliate the Communications Workers Union (CWU) in the media and communications sector in numerous situations in support of workers’ struggles. The SACP will strengthen its ties with the CWU and deepen its work with the union at the SABC in defence of workers. It is concerning that the SABC has been recruiting, on the one hand, and is now pushing retrenchments, on the other. This does not make sense. The SABC must also come out publicly and confirm whether its recent recruits indeed comprise individuals who were given hefty packages. These practices are indications that there is still a governance and management problem at the SABC. It is therefore important to revitalise the Save our Public Broadcaster Campaign. The Young Communist League and the youth, in general, should join in the campaign, which should include tackling unfair labour practices.

The Young Communist League should develop a leading role among the youth in supporting trade union and worker struggles against retrenchments at the SABC and in other sectors of the economy.