Professor Sipho Seepe’s article in Wednesday’s “Business Day”, linked below, is the kind that gets called “seminal” [i.e. “Highly influential in an original way; constituting or providing a basis for further development”], or in other words, like a seed that will grow into something bigger.Seepe says that President Mbeki has lost the support of his own party, the ANC, and that he and all his cronies should resign immediately. For most people this is a simple matter of democracy, in exactly the terms stated by Prof. Seepe; yet this idea has been publicly rejected and identified with “agents provocateurs” by COSATU in the past, for reasons best known to COSATU.
Seepe also says that those responsible for running the country out of electricity should all be sacked. COSATU disagrees, and says that Eskom is not to blame in any way, and that the government is covered by Thabo Mbeki’s apology.
This leaves the country and its power supply in the hands of rejects and incompetents, and with only hopes of better leadership to come at some time in the future, subject to all sorts of natural contingencies. We have been promised, at Polokwane, better leadership than before. Why can we not have it? The new leaders were elected. What are they waiting for?
Barry Sergeant is one of the main journalists at Moneyweb. See his article “A nation crippled”, linked below. Communist University would like to ask in this context, too, why we are supposed to go on under the leadership that Sergeant has no difficulty exposing and lampooning for its terrible record of failing audits. He continues to do so in a further article at Moneyweb, which mainly focuses on the equally shocking question of tenders.
These attacks from the likes of Sergeant will continue and they will become better aimed. And who can blame him? We do still have one great chance, and that is to let the new Polokwane broom sweep clean, and clear out all the mess. Yet somehow, the new broom has been locked in the cupboard, with a notice that says: Do not use for 18 months! Why this is so, is a mystery, but what it looks like is elite negotiation. If that is the case it is a crying shame.
Even if Jacob Zuma himself is the one who wants to mark time, to run on the spot, or to tread water for 18 months, he should not be allowed to do so. The delegates at Polokwane wanted action, and they wanted change. Now we see the re-emergence of Sophie Mokoena and Amanda Strydom on SABC, Helen Zille at Union Buildings, and soon, no doubt, the re-appearance of Mr Crocodile-Smile himself, Essop Pahad, out from wherever he has been hiding since Polokwane. In 18 months, who will know the difference between the new and the old? All the corruption that happens from now on will be for the account of the new leadership. Its credibility will be gone before it starts work.
The third item linked below is the contents list of “Africanus”, including a link to the download of that magazine in PDF format. Without having read most of the articles in the magazine, we can certainly say it is a sophisticated site of struggle. Yet we as Party members have to be prepared to take on any or all of the intellectuals whose wares are on display in this magazine. With or without any doctorates or degrees, we must be able to hold our own in the company of these academic head-bangers.
Comrades, those who can attend, don’t forget the first 2008 Branch General Meeting (BGM) of the Johannesburg Central Branch of the SACP. It will take place at 10h00 on Sunday morning, 3 February 2008 at the SATAWU offices, 13th floor, Old Mutual Building, 29 Kerk Street, (between Loveday and Harrison).
We had a fine attendance at the Communist University on Tuesday of 17 comrades. Now let’s make the Branch attendance look as good, comrades.
Click on these links:
A spent force in the path of democracy, Sipho Seepe, B Day (714 words)
A nation crippled, Barry Sergeant, Fear and Loathing, Moneyweb (824 words)
AFRICANUS, Journal of Development Studies, Contents (Table)
Coming Events
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