Long Winter

“It is going to be a long winter”, according to COSATU GS Zwelinzima Vavi, as reported in today’s Business Day. He was speaking at yesterday’s press conference following the two-day bilateral meeting between COSATU and the SACP. See the linked report of the statement issued from the bilateral. This document should be studied well by those who do not yet understand the relationship between the two principal working class formations in South Africa.

Meanwhile COSATU has fully backed the FAWU members on strike at Blue Ribbon Bakeries. “COSATU is backing FAWU’s call for a consumer boycott on all Premier products, such as Iwisa and Impala maize meal, Invicta samp, the Snowflake flour range and particularly Blue Ribbon bread. We have called upon members of all affiliates and the South African public to support this consumer boycott until a satisfactory settlement is reached.” says their statement (see link below).

The SACP Gauteng Province held a Congress last weekend. The document linked below is the press release issued yesterday by the incoming PEC. No doubt its meaning will become clearer as time goes by. The document lists the new office bearers but not the additional members of the PEC. See the link below.

The British ruling class, whose leading figures are collectively known as “The Establishment” in that country, are in the habit of shamelessly and demagogically co-opting everything that moves, whenever it serves their purpose. At the moment they are in the middle of a hypocritical orgy of self-congratulation over the ending of the slave trade, of which they had been the main instigators and the masters for more than two centuries.

The industrial scale of this extended, monstrous atrocity, the complicity of the entire British state, and the fact that the present-day relative prosperity of Britain and poverty of Africa are the continuing legacy of that time, make the current polite British ceremonies repugnant.

See the linked article below for what happened the other day in Westminster Abbey, and why.

It was not possible to attach the flyer for the Communist University on April 4th, as was anticipated yesterday. Hence the link below which leads to a file download of the flyer. Please print some and distribute them or pin them on notice boards, if you can.

The image above is a portrait of Dominique Toussaint "LOuverture", the "opener" or "gateway" to the liberation of the Atlantic slaves.

Click on these links:

Statement on SACP-COSATU bilateral, Joint Media Release (1628 words)

COSATU backs Blue Ribbon strikers (261 words)

SACP Gauteng post-Congress press statement (1284 words)

Incident at Westminster Abbey, Michael Dickinson, Counterpunch (1671 words)

CU Flyer for 4 April 2007 (File download)