ANC Today, Gone Tomorrow

Going shopping today? Don’t go to Shoprite, Checkers, OK Furniture, OK Foods, OK Mini Markets, House & Home, Hungry Lion, Usave, Freshmark, 8 ‘til late, Computicket, Rainbow Finance, Meat Market, or Sentra. There’s a boycott on. Go to another shop today. And if you see a picket line, don’t cross it, just say a few words of encouragement to the strikers and pass on. See the linked article below about the SACCAWU strike against Shoprite Checkers, the consumer boycott of that group, and COSATU’s support for it. The article says that in Southgate the SACCAWU members sang: "My mother was a kitchen girl, my father a garden boy that's why I'm so stubborn!" The 1946 black mineworkers’ strike, 60 years ago today, was a milestone in South Africa’s political development. COSATU issued a Press Statement and the ANC put an article in their on-line publication, “ANC Today”. See below for both of these. The SACP is in the middle of a Central Committee meeting and will issue a full press release tomorrow. In the same “ANC Today” there appeared an article by Finance Minister Trevor Manuel. COSATU’s e-mail Daily Labour News picked it up and relayed it to subscribers. Immediately thereafter, Manuel’s article, and then the link to it from the ANC Home page, disappeared. Who pulled it, and why? Read the article, linked below, for clues. At least we can say this: The ANC is not monolithic, and its pronouncements are not “cast in stone”! Also linked below, from the Israeli/Palestinian peace organisation, Gush Shalom, is an article by Uri Avnery showing in lay person’s terms how Imperialism works as between Israel and the USA. NUMSA GS Silumko Nondwangu is the Mail and Guardian candidate for COSATU GS. The support of this slack bourgeois tabloid will no doubt be the kiss of death to Nondwangu’s dreams this time around. Imagine appearing at the COSATU Congress as the favourite of the bourgeoisie! How he could he even think of launching a campaign this way, in a bourgeois scandal-sheet, is so not known to the Communist University, which studies such things. But it looks like a subjective factor, such as, for example, foolish pride, or recklessness. The Mail and Guardian claims that Comrade Silumko has support from his union NUMSA, and from SACCAWU, SADTU, NEHAWU and POPCRU out of the 20 COSATU affiliates. We will be amazed if even one of these unions stands up for Nondwangu against the proven leadership of Zwelinzima Vavi. Comrade Vavi has now fully confirmed that he is standing again for the position of COSATU General Secretary at the 9th Congress to be held next month from 18th to 21st September. The Communist University predicts that even his own NUMSA delegates will abandon Silumko Nondwangu at the Congress and leave him and his M&G supporters with zero support and egg on their faces. Click on these links: COSATU calls for Shoprite boycott, Sapa, IOL (502 words) 1946 mineworkers Strike, COSATU (1926 words) 1946 Mineworkers Strike, ANC Today (1373 words) No contradictions between RDP and GEAR, Trevor Manuel (1513 words) Who’s the dog? Who’s the tail? Uri Avnery, Gush Shalom (1728 words)