Julius Malema answers Thami ka Platjie in an open letter
Dear Thami ka Platjie
Julius Malema, former leader of ANC Youth League
I have read your open letter published on the 16th June
edition of the Sunday Independent. I might be wrong, but I interpret
your letter to be basically saying that I should be patient in the Zuma
African National Congress (ZANC), and fight struggles for Economic
Freedom within the confines of such, because those who fought from
different platforms before never succeeded.
Coming from you, the advice might be genuine because your political
life and Career has been in the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), which had
profound potential as a Liberation Movement, but was compromised by the
untimely death of Robert Sobukwe, a prominent Africanist, and founding
leader of the African National Congress Youth League, a generation that
proclaimed FREEDOM IN OUR LIFETIME. Had Sobukwe not died, the PAC would
have been prominent and contributed far much more significantly to the
struggle for national and economic emancipation.
As a Scholar of domestic liberation history, you will appreciate the
reality that subjective aspects (such as leadership choices), and
objective factors in any moment constitute a critical component of the
path, direction, form and vigour of any revolutionary Movement.
Despite his misconception of non-racialism, Robert Sobukwe gave
practical meaning to the Congress Youth’s League founding generation’s
determination to confront the apartheid regime, and his ultimate
isolation and banishment by the regime was recognition of the subjective
capacity and strengths he possessed; one which posed a more serious
challenge to the nonsensical apartheid racist domination.
You also might be genuine in your advice because you recently founded
and registered a political organisation, the Pan Africanist Movement
(PAM), which was short-lived, either due to lack of determination or
poverty of the ideals it upheld.
We will never know, because on what appeared to be Career decisions
and the need for immediate class upward mobility, you joined the Zuma
African National Congress (ZANC), which does not represent anything the
ANC of Oliver Tambo, Walter Sisulu, Nelson Mandela represented, and
therefore not a genuine Green, Black and Gold Movement we joined. The
ZANC is an association of Careerists and neo-liberal Bureaucrats whose
sole mission and role is protecting the interests of White monopoly
capital, and that is the band you have joined.
One thing you seemingly do not understand is that to me and my fellow
Economic Freedom Fighters, politics is not a Career or profession
wherein one is obsessed with upward mobility, even at the expense of
principle. I am not in Political revolutionary activism because I want
to pursue Career interests and aspirations.
If I was chasing positions, I would have readily accepted when
substantial majority of ANC members requested that I go to Parliament. I
would have not taken up a struggle for Economic Freedom, which by its
very nature was Career-limiting. When I gave the Closing Address to the
ANC Youth League 24th National Congress in June 2011, long
before charges were preferred, as newly elected President of the ANC
Youth League, I said, “by the way things are turning up, me and you
Floyd are not safe in the ANC”, and further said “We need the ANC to
declare in December 2012 that we are in an economic struggle – that is
the terrain in which we find ourselves. Once that declaration has been
made by the ANC, everybody will work towards the economic emancipation”.
The need to carry the struggle outside the ZANC is now, because it has
proven that will not take us anywhere.
I said this because I knew that with the determination to intensify
the struggle for economic freedom, which was a direct challenge to white
monopoly capital and their representatives in the ZANC, our
determination will be banished, criminalised and our lives threatened.
I refused to retract on principle even during the ANC Disciplinary
process because I stood firm on what I believe is a genuine struggle for
economic freedom in our lifetime, which must be extended to Botswana,
Namibia, Malawi, Angola, Mozambique, Angola, Lesotho, Swaziland, the
rest of the African continent and intensified in Zimbabwe. If my
obsession was positions and Career, I would have apologised and chose to
abandon the struggle for economic freedom in our lifetime.
We are inspired by the fighting spirit of Vladimir Lenin, Fidel
Castro, Che Guevara, Patrice Lumumba, Hugo Chavez, Robert Mugabe, June
16 1796 generation, and many other Freedom Fighters who understood that
revolution and struggle for emancipation is far much bigger than
organisational confines. Revolutionaries know no borders and draw
inspiration and courage from fighters across the world, and not confined
to domestic politics or narrow organisational politics you are making
reference to in your Open letter.
When Lenin realised that the struggle for a socialist revolution was
being confined and constrained in wrong, counter-revolutionary, and
effectively reactionary parameters of the Marxist Russian Social
Democratic Labour Party, he mobilised to pursue the revolution from an
independent platform, the Bolsheviks. The Bolsheviks did not only lead
one of the most successful revolutions in the world, they contributed
massively to the declination of many countries and stood firm in
opposition to imperialist domination and control of the world.
The Bolsheviks inspired many revolutions, and world history can never
be told without mentioning the profound impact this Great October
Revolution caused in the world. Spectators like you, defined the courage
and determination of Vladimir Lenin as Adventurism when he started the
Bolsheviks Movement, and his contribution to our current understanding
of the State and revolution is more than profound, and a continued
inspiration to many in the world.
The subjective weaknesses on the leadership of the Bolsheviks (such
as Stalin) undermined the revolution from being carried to its logical
conclusion. Politically and ideologically, we are the Bolsheviks
(majority) in society and that will be realised in action that is not
inspired by vote-buying and manipulation.
Che Guevara and Fidel Castro led determined Combatants in Cuba to
defeat the Batista regime and played a decisive role in the liberation
of many colonised countries in the world, including in Africa and
particularly South Africa. When they begun the struggle, they were
called Adventurist and reckless, and impatient as some are doing now,
but they fought until the end and their mark in history will never be
deleted, even by the West propaganda that seek to portray them as evil.
Please note that this was a novel movement, founded on principles that
developed to even embrace Marxism-Leninism as tools of analysis and
guide to action.
Dissatisfied with the military and fighting tactics of the Zimbabwe
African People’s Union (ZAPU), Ndabaningi Sithole, Herbert Chitepo, and
many revolutionary others founded the Zimbabwean African National Union
(ZANU), which fought for liberation of Zimbabwe, and suppressed
insurrection post attainment of political freedom.
The ideological dynamism of ZANU made it appreciate that it had to
work with ZAPU (to form ZANU-PF) to continue the struggle for total
emancipation. ZANU-PF under the leadership of President Robert Mugabe
became a dynamic Movement which challenged imperialism and decidedly
reclaiming Zimbabwe’s economic resources amidst global neo-liberal,
racist, and Afrophobic condemnation of blacks reclaiming their land.
The June 16 1976 generation is our greatest inspiration, who without
an military infrastructure to confront the apartheid regime, went ahead,
even without the approval of the ANC to confront the regime. The regime
was shaken by the June 16 events of the youth who were fearless and did
not have anything to lose, but their chains. We are here today, with no
financial resources to fight electoral politics, but we will do
everything we have in our power to get the message across that the time
for Economic Freedom in here, and the youth are better placed to take
this struggle forward.
It is important to make those few highlights of important political
dynamics in different parts of the world in order to remind you that
political activity in the world is a result of conscious human action,
not a supernatural phenomenon. The ANC is not Alfa and Omega of South
Africans revolutionary politics. Many major political events have
transpired in South Africa without the involvement of the ANC, and to
think that it is only the ZANC that will carry the struggle forward is
foolishness
Like the many observations we have made before, we want to remind you
that the ZANC is on a constant downward spiral ideologically,
politically, and morally. The ZANC is not committed to the Freedom
Charter anymore. The ZANC is demoting South Africa into a Kleptocracy
(government of thieves), who uses selective prosecutions and secrecy to
hide their looting of resources that should better the lives of our
people.
South Africa has been re-colonised by a family that stays in
Saxonwold in Johannesburg, the Guptas because they control the ZANC.
These are facts, which with practical and material evidence will become
very clear on the election platform when we will be asking the people
whether they want to continue under the colony of the Guptas or want to
carry forward the Freedom Charter towards Economic Freedom.
Also it is wrong to liken the Economic Freedom Fighters to a
breakaway faction from the ANC. We are not a breakaway faction, we are
revolutionaries who having realised suppression of radical economic
thoughts and policy direction in the ANC, have chosen to establish an
independent platform to gain mass power, political power, the State and
then transform the economy for the benefit of all South Africans. You
will not immediately understand this urgent need because you are
obsessed with domestic history, whilst revolutions and political
movements should be understood and interpreted beyond confines of
political and organisational borders.
Your advice that I should remain the ZANC and fight within does not
make sense because I am not a member of the ZANC, and do not believe
that the ZANC will be a revolutionary Movement, because Tribalism,
regionalism, factionalism will be entrenched to marginalise all radical
economic perspectives. Already the Zuma National Task Team (ZNTT) is
saying the ANC Youth League does not have policy on Nationalisation of
Mines and Land expropriation without compensation because that is what
Zuma wants. All radical, Freedom Charter hoisters will be eliminated
from the ranks of the ANC, and the band of Guptarised puppets will be in
domination.
We are not a breakaway formation, and we will live to realise
economic freedom in our lifetime. The reality which you and the band of
Careerists in the ANC must begin to appreciate is that this Movement for
Economic Freedom in Our Lifetime will realise economic freedom in our
lifetime. We will in our lifetime, turn the mass support we command into
formalised political power, capture the State and radically change
ownership of the economy, particularly land and mineral resources to
benefit all South Africans. It is a matter of time, and like those who
did not internalise the reality that the generation of youth in 1944
demanded FREEDOM IN OUR LIFETIME, some amongst yourselves, do not
believe that we are demanding ECONOMIC FREEDOM IN OUR LIFETIME, and we
will win this WAR.
Revolutionary regards,
Julius Malema
Source: Politicsweb
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