The South African Students Congress (SASCO) supports COSATU socio-economic strike that seeks to see the destruction of capitalist relations of production and the political edifice that ensures their sustenance. As an organisation we call on all poor; the working class citizens; and international community to join the call made by the biggest, oldest, and progressive workers federation on the 7th of October 2020.
SASCO will join COSATU represent millions of both the organized and unorganized labour in our country, We will do so fully cognisant of the fact that the history of South Africa and the manner in which market economics marked their footprints in South Africa was through the dispossession of the black majority through colonial rule in particular. We also remember the words of President Thabo Mbeki when he charged that, “all societies therefore necessarily bear the imprint, the birth-marks of their own past. Whether to a greater or lesser extent must depend on a whole concatenation of factors, both internal and external to each particular society.”
As the student movement we understand the socio-economic issues in our country within this context and thus support the socio-economic strike by the progressive worker’s federation. The covid-19 pandemic has not introduced a new economic system but has in loudest actions made a call that capitalism and the institutions that continue to legitimize it are failing and the left must with urgency organize itself.
SASCO will always be found side by side with workers of this country and world, because we understand that as students we are independent from the immediate class of our parents. Socio-economic issues in communities affect us too and as students in majority we will seek to join the labour force immediately after graduating. To this day, our tools of analysis and guide to action has not failed us and thus we shall always identify with the poor and working class masses of our country.
The rising unemployment as depicted by StatsSA sends a strong message to the students’ movement that we can no longer sit back and watch workers being retrenched and allow those that weaken the capacity of the state through corruption to go unchallenged and be let loose in the streets while conditions of our people worsen, We have since called on the President of the ANC and the Republic of South Africa to act swiftly and arrest corrupt state officials and as progressives we will stand on his defence.
As we join workers tomorrow we will intensify our call that NSFAS board must be appointed with urgency to stop the madness happening in that institution, we will be intensifying our call that we need TVET Colleges that are transformed enough to respond to our societal challenges and skills shortages, we will be making an unequivocal call that the racist Afrikaaner idiots that have undermined the state publicly by burning a police van must be arrested and the harshest sentence must be handed down to them.
As SADTU celebrates 30th Anniversary, though our message has been sent to them we would like to reiterate our call that together we must abolish the two tier system that exist in the South African schooling, we do so because this is linked with our broader struggle to introduce a single coordinated schooling system in our nation and get rid of existing inequalities.
Issued by SASCO NEC
Bamanye Matiwane
President
Buthanani Thobela
Secretary General
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Luvuyo Barnes
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079 393 7131