new year's wishes from the NEC

[Sisa Ntlabati]

comrades

 

below is your new year's wishes from the NEC of SASCO

 

Don?t just wish for a happy new year: Fight for it

30 December 2010

Coming from a year of World Cup joy and tears for lack of Free
Education, it is not surprising that we are eager to celebrate the end
of 2010 and mark the beginning of 2011. We, those of the poor, bear
the scars of financial exclusions, grinding poverty, unemployment and
disease of the past year. We have, in the same year, seen the rise of
the sushi elite, Tenderpreneurs, the new tendency with its
anti-communism, taste for lavish lifestyles even by the most
left-leaning of Ministers, thousands of unemployed thrown into the
streets and thousands of students spewed into street corners by an
ever intransigent higher education system. Things must not be allowed
to go on in this way in 2011.

In the past year alone, we have also seen restrained but heroic
working class struggles ? from the Free Education campaign mounted by
thousands of students at the beginning of the year to the public
service strike mid-year. The past year alone, has fixed the matter
firmly in the eyes of all who do not deliberately close their eyes
that the state cannot and will never be an impartial referee in
ongoing class struggles, it takes one side and that has been the side
of the rich capitalist class in the past year. If 2011 has to be a
happy new-year, a radical shift is needed.

We will not only wish a happy new year to the working class and the
poor, but will pose a challenge which we believe will lead to a REALLY
happy new year for the poor. We call on the working class to make 2011
a happy new year through taking power with their own hands by fighting
for: free education, increased access to institutions of higher
learning, better salaries, full employment, better and more houses,
nationalization ? not bailouts, but most importantly to defeat
capitalism and abolish private property. If the working class and poor
do not fight for the realization of these, 2011 will certainly NOT be
a happy new year but will once more be a year of disappointment and
dashed dreams.

As we drink cheap whiskies and beers, we should gaze up towards the
rich as they down expensive whiskies and tell ourselves that they do
so at the expense of the majority. As we are squashed in
accident-prone overloaded taxis to the beach, we should look to the
expensive air-conditioned German cars driven by the rich and tell
ourselves those are products of the sweat of the working class whose
hard-work it cannot enjoy. As we braai our Christmas meat leftovers,
we should look at the Sushi enjoyed by the rich and tell ourselves
this will not take place the next year. As we enjoy our little savings
of the past year, we should watch the rich buy willy-nilly with no
limit with the money it stole from the working class as profits and
tell ourselves this could have been used for free education.

We will tell ourselves in the new year that we will not only wish for
a happy new year, but we will fight for it. We will ensure that we
destroy all that ensures that we remain poor and cannot afford basic
necessities. We will ensure, like those who fought apartheid that we
will fight for a better economic and educational future, one that will
be filled with happy new years?, one after the other, without the need
for consistent wishes at the beginning of every year. As a start, our
organization will launch a most ferocious free education campaign from
the moment institutions open with a determination that no student must
be excluded from institutions for lack of funds. The achievement of
all these goals to us will constitute a truly happy new year.

Nonetheless, we wish everybody a happy and prosperous new year.

 

For details Contact
Mbulelo Mandlana (President)
071 879 3408

Or

Lazola Ndamase (Secretary General)
082 679 8718