ECONOMIC FREEDOM FIGHTERS CENTRAL COMMAND PRESS STATEMENT

11 July 2013

The Central Command Team of Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) held its 1st representative meeting at the 17 Shaft Conference Centre in Johannesburg on the 10th of July 2013. The meeting had representatives from all the 9 Provinces of South Africa, fraternal organisations and progressive Activists who associate with the struggle for economic freedom in our lifetime. We are addressing the media here at Constitution Hill, which is a symbol of South Africa’s political emancipation, which we as Economic Freedom Fighters believe should be elevated through concrete programmes to economic emancipation.

The meeting is a result of the clarion call we made on the 11th of June 2013 that all Economic Freedom Fighters should stand up to answer the question of WHAT IS TO BE DONE? Since the clarion call, thousands of progressive Economic Freedom Fighters, Nongovernmental organisations, youth, workers, traditional leaders, Activists, Movements, Non-Profit organisations, political parties, churches, Intellectuals, Academics, Students, Traditional Chiefs, Headmen and Kings, Independent Councillors, Internationalists, and many others have responded to the clarion call and gave definite answers on WHAT IS TO BE DONE?

It is no secret that an absolute majority of all those who have responded are saying that Economic Freedom Fighters should be a radical, Left, and anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist Movement with an internationalist outlook that should contest elections in South Africa. Because Economic Freedom Fighters is led by organic and democratic revolutionary foot soldiers, Volunteers and Organisers, we took a decision that a decision to found a political Movement that will contest elections cannot and should not be taken by a few individuals in a haphazard way.

We have since the clarion call on WHAT IS TO BE DONE? constituted Provincial Central Command teams whose role and focus will be the constitution of regional, sub-regional and ward-based central command structures in preparation for a NATIONAL ASSEMBLY ON WHAT IS TO BE DONE. The NATIONAL ASSEMBLY ON WHAT IS TO BE DONE will be the platform that takes the decision and resolves on the option of founding a Movement that will contest elections, agree on the Constitution, the Colours, Logo, and adopt a Founding Manifesto, which will be the core of the politics and programmes of EFF towards the 2014 general elections. Membership forms, the website, paraphernalia and physical addresses of Economic Freedom Fighters will be unleashed and announced immediately after the NATIONAL ASSEMBLY ON WHAT IS TO BE DONE.

The character of Economic Freedom Fighters will be that of a radical, Left, and anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist Movement with an internationalist outlook anchored by popular grassroots formations and struggles. EFF will be the vanguard of community and workers’ struggles and will always be on the side of the people. EFF will, with determination and consistency, associate with the protest movement in South Africa, and will also join in struggles that defy unjust laws. EFF also embrace the radical (not the neo-liberal) interpretation of the Freedom Charter, which says South Africa should belong to all who live in it through equal distribution of South Africa’s wealth and heritage.

Economic Freedom Fighters also embrace the following values and principles:

• Human dignity, the achievement of equality and the advancement of human rights and freedoms.
• Non-racialism and non-sexism.
• Universal adult suffrage, a national common voters’ roll, regular elections and a multi-party system of democratic government, to ensure accountability, responsiveness and openness.

The NATIONAL ASSEMBLY ON WHAT IS TO BE DONE will happen on the 26th and 27th of July 2013 in Soweto, and all Provinces will be represented with delegations selected from all regions, sub-regions, and wards of EFF. The NATIONAL ASSEMBLY ON WHAT IS TO BE DONE will also be attended by progressive formations from across South Africa, NGOs, and independent political parties at local and provincial levels. We call all Economic Freedom Fighters from the African continent, the African Diaspora and progressive internationalists who wish to attend the NATIONAL ASSEMBLY ON WHAT IS TO BE DONE to bring to our attention the interest to attend.

Draft Policy documents and perspectives towards the NATIONAL ASSEMBLY ON WHAT IS TO BE DONE will be made public after the National Policy Dialogue, which will happen on the 19th of July 2013. All South Africans will be afforded an opportunity to make an input on the policies drafted as means to achieve the Pillars for economic freedom in our lifetime. The key non-negotiable Pillars for economic freedom in our lifetime are the following:

• Expropriation of South Africa’s land without compensation for equal redistribution.
• Nationalisation of Mines, banks, and other strategic sectors of the economy, without compensation.
• Building State and government capacity, which will lead to abolishment of Tenders.
• Free quality education, healthcare, houses, and sanitation.
• Massive protected industrial development to create millions of sustainable jobs including the introduction of minimum wages in order to close the wage gap between the rich and the poor.
• Massive development of the African economy and advocating for a move from reconciliation to justice in the entire continent.
• Open, accountable, corrupt-free government and society without fear of victimisation by State agencies.

The NATIONAL ASSEMBLY ON WHAT IS TO BE DONE will discuss the best models and process of how soon and how best we realise these pillars. All members of society will have access to the draft policy documents before the NATIONAL ASSEMBLY ON WHAT IS TO BE DONE, and deliberations on this platform will be informed by contributions from all people in South Africa, Africa and the world.

We are here to announce the leaders of all Provincial Central Command teams, and the core of the National Command Team that will lead Economic Freedom Fighters to the NATIONAL ASSEMBLY ON WHAT IS TO BE DONE:

EFF CENTRAL COMMAND TEAM:

Commander-in-Chief and National Convenor: Cde Julius Malema

National Co-ordinator: Cde Mpho Ramakatsa

Members of the National Central Command Team:

1. Floyd Shivambu

2. Andile Mngxitama

3. Mbuyiseni Ndlozi

4. Sam Tshabalala

5. Fana Mokoena

6. Leigh Ann Mathys

7. Pabane Moteka

8. Hlayiseka Chawane

9. Sipho Mbatha

10. Kenny Kunene

11. Mandisa Makesini

12. Hlengiwe Hlophe

13. Mbuyiseni Ndlozi

Provincial Central Command Teams:

1. Gauteng

a. Convenor—Pule Matshithse

b. Co-ordinators—Parks Khaiyane and Lufuno Gogoro

2. KwaZulu-Natal

a. Convenor—Reggie Ngcobo

b. Co-ordinator—Nathi Phewu

3. Free State

a. Convenor—Sam Matiase

b. Co-ordinator—Willy Tshabalala

4. Northern Cape

a. Convenor—Mbuyiselo Matebus

b. Co-ordinator—Adri Noble

5. Limpopo

a. Convenor—Michael Mathebe

b. Co-ordinator—George Raphela

6. Western Cape

a. Convenor—Gcobani Nozongana

b. Co-ordinator—Lephallo Mahoto

7. Eastern Cape

a. Convenor—Themba Kiro

b. Co-ordinator—Pumza Ntobongwana

8. Mpumalanga

a. Convenor—Ayanda Tshabalala

b. Co-ordinator—Dumisani Ncongwane

9. North West

a. Convenor—Alfred Motsi

b. Co-ordinator—Papiki Babuile

All these Convenors and Co-ordinators are operating within a collective of Provincial Command Teams of 10 members each. These are comrades and Fighters whose immediate task is establishment of Regional Command Teams, Sub-regional command teams, Ward command teams and selection of representative delegates to the NATIONAL ASSEMBLY ON WHAT IS TO BE DONE.

On Saturday, the 13th of July, EFF will hold Consultative Mass Meetings in the Vaal and in Sasolburg. Details in this regard will be communicated on a separate statement.

On Monday, the 15th of July, EFF will officially announce the National Spokesperson and head of communications, who will handle all media enquiries and communication concerning EFF matters. Volunteers who have responded via social media and email addresses will be contacted by their respective Provincial leadership collectives. Mass rallies and meetings will happen in all communities until the 2014 General Elections and beyond.

ISSUED BY ECONOMIC FREEDOM FIGHTERS

It is important to note that the policy dialogue meeting did not take the decision to launch a political party to contest elections, because such a decision could only be taken by a representative body with delegations from the entire country.

Discussions on the National Assembly meeting included a consultation with the September National Imbizo (SNI), a platform led by Andile Mngxitama, and one which is truly concerned about the future and direction of South African politics. As part of its objectives, the SNI emphasises that it is “committed to giving our country another possibility and a new hope! The main objective of the SNI is to dialogue around the challenges facing our people and to make proposals for a way forward. To present our people with a discussion forum as a mechanism to claim back our country from politicians and self-enriching elites; we want a democracy that works for the majority.”²¹

The SNI is inspired by black consciousness, and connects this to the reality that black consciousness should be about the seizure of political power and of the state for radical economic transformation. The SNI’s main areas of focus in its consideration of political power is in its commitment to the Sankara Oath. This perspective holds that public representatives should use public services. This is largely influenced by Thomas Sankara, a revolutionary leader from Burkina Faso, whose revolutionary ethos meant that he lived an ordinary life and did not fall into the temptations and luxuries that often come with the occupation of political office.

The Sankara values are admirable and something which the EFF Founding Manifesto encapsulates. A significant and critical component of EFF is activists from SNI with very sharp black consciousness thoughts and beliefs, which complement the struggle for economic freedom in South Africa. Black consciousness found a proper home in the EFF and is expressed through its Fanonian character, which the Founding National Assembly embraced as the Marxist-Leninist Fanonian character of the EFF.

Amongst those who played a critical role in the preparations for the National Assembly were Commissar Mpho Ramakatsa, a former Robben Island prisoner and soldier of Umkhonto we Sizwe. Commissar Ramakatsa is a freedom fighter from the Free State Province, who has stood for economic justice and freedom his entire life. In the Free State, he was part of that group of ANC activists who believed that the ANC could be rescued from within. He mobilised ANC activists in the run-up to the Provincial Congress to reject the leadership of the ANC in the Free State because it was rigged in their favour.

During that time, Commissar Ramakatsa took the ANC to the High Court and subsequently to the Constitutional Court for rigging the congress. In the Constitutional Court, where the isolated ANC branches were represented by Advocate Dali Mpofu, the case was ruled in favour of the comrades led by Comrade Ramakatsa. This happened on the eve of the ANC 53rd National Conference in Bloemfontein. The verdict of the Constitutional Court reversed the Free State Conference and said the officials of the Free State ANC should not vote in the 53rd National Conference because they were illegally elected. The Constitutional Court decision meant that the ANC Conference in the Free State had to be rerun, yet this still did not bring about fair internal processes. Comrade Ramakatsa brought organisational experience and played a critical role in the formative stages of EFF.

Another important contribution in the formative stages of EFF came from Mbuyiseni Ndlozi, an activist from Gauteng province and a PhD student in political studies at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. Comrade Mbuyiseni Ndlozi’s contribution deserves mentioning as he convened a process that drafted the founding constitution of the EFF. Ndlozi’s ability to immediately elevate a new sense of organisational identity for the EFF, with new songs and a new ethos, is commendable and is a permanent feature of the organisation.

Comrade Mbuyiseni Ndlozi’s defence of the struggle for economic freedom began even before the launch of the EFF:

If so assessed, it is no secret that not a single demand of the (Freedom) Charter which has to do with property relations has been implemented or inserted in macroeconomic frameworks post 1994. Further, one can’t help but suspect that the real reason why the ANC Youth League (ANCYL) has been disbanded had nothing to do with “disrespect of leadership and consensus” or “undermining democratic centralism” but that the league wanted to advance – with whatever right or wrongful intention of their leadership – the demands, and specifically pertaining to property, of the Freedom Charter.

If the ANCYL was really disbanded for the claimed reasons, imagine how many former ANCYL national executive committee members (NECs) would have met the same fate. Think of Peter Mokaba and the arms question; or Fikile Mbalula and the Zimbabwe question. It seems safe to assume that this NEC faced the worst form of discipline (or silencing) precisely because they were challenging the continuing racial configuration of property relations. To make matters worse, they even proposed a concrete programme of radically altering property relations without the ruling class (whites in particular) being compensated.

The reason, I argue, is because the ANCYL programme and plans would have threatened the legitimacy of the current government amongst white nations and white property owners.

There are many activists who played various roles in the formative stages of the EFF, and those include the following:

1. CiC Julius Malema
2. Floyd Shivambu
3. Mbuyiseni Ndlozi
4. Andile Mngxitama
5. Sam Tshabalala
6. Fana Mokoena
7. Leigh Ann Mathys
8. Pabane Moteka
9. Hlayiseka Chawane
10. Sipho Mbatha
11. Kenny Kunene
12. Mandisa Makesini
13. Hlengiwe Hlophe
14. Marshall Dlamini
15. Mpho Ramakatsa
16. Sam Matiase
17. Alfred Motsi
18. Parks Khayane
19. Patrick Sindane

In their various capacities, they did everything in their power to ensure that the National Assembly would happen. Some of the people who played a critical role cannot be mentioned at this juncture for political reasons, but their contributions will be noted in future reflections on the history of the EFF.

EFF as a political party and movement of the people

The EFF National Assembly was convened at Uncle Tom’s Hall in Orlando West, Soweto. There, deliberations on the formation of a political party and discussions on its political and ideological outlook and programme were held. The National Assembly was attended by 1200 delegates from all provinces, and a delegation of ex-mineworkers from the Eastern Cape and mineworkers from Marikana led by Xolani Nzuza attended.

In his address to the National Assembly, Xolani Nzuza said, “We will take you to parliament, but never forget us when you are in parliament and behave like the ones who are currently in parliament.” Xolani Nzuza was speaking on behalf of the mineworkers of Marikana, and on behalf of those who died in the struggle for a better share in the mineral wealth of our country.

The decision to launch the EFF as a political party was taken at approximately 12:30 on 27 July 2013 in Soweto after lengthy deliberations. It was agreed that the political party should be called Economic Freedom Fighters. The National Assembly adopted a Constitution, which would, in the establishment stages of the EFF, become the guideline and supreme law of the organisation. The National Assembly also endorsed the proposed logo of the Economic Freedom Fighters.

Notably, after the agreement to launch the organisation, the 1200 delegates who attended the National Assembly joined the EFF and adopted the Constitution and the Founding Manifesto, which are the two most essential documents of the EFF. A clear mandate was issued that all activists should be on the ground mobilising the people towards economic freedom in our lifetime.

At the end of the National Assembly, the following declaration was adopted:

DECLARATION OF THE ECONOMIC FREEDOM FIGHTERS NATIONAL ASSEMBLY ON WHAT IS TO BE DONE – 26–27 JULY 2013

27 July 2013

We the delegates from all across the length and breadth of South Africa gathered in Soweto on the 26th and 27th of July 2013 to discuss and resolve the question of What is to be Done? We gather as Economic Freedom Fighters representing non-governmental organisations, youth, workers, traditional leaders, Activists, Movements, Non-Profit organisations, political parties, churches, Intellectuals, Academics, Students, Traditional Chiefs, Headmen and Kings, Independent Councillors, Internationalists, and many others who have responded to the clarion call and gave definite answers on WHAT IS TO BE DONE?

All delegates to the National Assembly had a definite and unequivocal mandate from millions of South Africans that Economic Freedom Fighters should be an economic emancipation movement, which should be mass-based, associate and relate constantly with the grassroots and community movements, anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist and most importantly contest political power. Economic Freedom Fighters will therefore be an independent economic emancipation movement which will contest political power in all spheres of government.

We gather on the 26th of July 2013 because we are inspired and agitated by the Cuban July 26 Movement, which from the 26th of July 1953 launched a struggle that culminated in the victorious Cuban Revolution, which is still intact despite trade embargoes, isolation, natural disasters and terrorism against the Cuban people. Cuba remains an inspiration because with a very low GDP per capita income. Cuba is amongst the best countries in terms of healthcare, education, low infant mortality rates, life expectancy and other vital social services. This is a sign that the revolution was about the emancipation of the people, not the enrichment of a few individuals who callously and rapaciously redirect State resources for self-enrichment.

We meet in Soweto because we want to draw inspiration in Soweto from Fearless Freedom Fighters who in history have been at the forefront of the revolutionary struggles against apartheid repression and exploitation. Soweto gave birth to many revolutionaries that revolutionised the struggle for political emancipation in the 1940s, Soweto gave birth to the 1976 generation of fearless freedom fighters who dared the apartheid regime and rendered its machinery ungovernable, and now Soweto is giving birth to Economic Freedom Fighters who will carry the struggle to its logical economic emancipation of the people of South Africa.

The EFF is a South African movement with a progressive internationalist outlook, which seeks to engage with global progressive movements. The EFF draws inspiration from the broad Marxist-Leninist tradition and Fanonian schools of thought in their analyses of the state, imperialism, culture and class contradictions in every society. Through organic engagement and a constant relationship with the masses, Economic Freedom Fighters provide clear and cogent alternatives to the current neo-colonial economic system, which in many countries keeps the oppressed under colonial domination and subject to imperialist exploitation.

We believe that the best contribution we can make in the international struggle against global imperialism is to rid our country of imperialist domination. For the South African struggle, the EFF cardinal pillars for economic emancipation are the following:

• Expropriation of South Africa’s land without compensation for equal redistribution in use.
• Nationalisation of mines, banks, and other strategic sectors of the economy, without compensation.
• Building state and government capacity, which will lead to the abolishment of tenders.
• Free quality education, healthcare, houses, and sanitation.
• Massive protected industrial development to create millions of sustainable jobs, including the introduction of minimum wages in order to close the wage gap between the rich and the poor, close the apartheid wage gap and promote rapid career paths for Africans in the workplace.
• Massive development of the African economy and advocating a move from reconciliation to justice in the entire continent.
• Open, accountable, corrupt-free government and society without fear of victimisation by State agencies.

These cardinal pillars constitute the core of our political programme and election programme for the 2014 general elections and beyond. The nature and character of our struggle will be that of a grassroots movement – a Protest Movement for fundamental change. These cardinal pillars are important because South Africa, like many other former political colonies, is still trapped in the colonial division of labour as supplier of primary commodities to the coloniser nations. This colonial feature cannot and will never be broken by continued economic dominance of private corporations, particularly in the natural and mineral resources sector. Multinational and private ownership of South Africa’s commanding heights of the economy should be discontinued in order to stimulate State-led and -aided industrial development.

After careful thought and a thorough process of consultation with the masses of our people, we came and resolved that South Africa’s people’s wishes and aspiration must be respected by launching an organisation which shall fight for, strive for and advance these aspirations unapologetically!

EFF, as a people’s movement, shall, in its content, character and outlook, be a true ‘weapon of struggle in the hands of the people and a collective effort to solve people’s own problems’.

The National Assembly recognises that South Africa is at a cross-roads for all wrong reasons. The hard-won victories over the colonial, racist and apartheid system have been meaningless although necessary due to lack of economic emancipation of the majority, an African majority. As a consequence thereof, the South Africans, through their delegates, spoke overwhelmingly that they, the people, need a new alternative, a radical, militant, fearless movement to serve their interest. We reject the National Development Plan because it does not speak to the fundamental change of property relations in South Africa, and will therefore not be a sustainable solution to the unemployment, poverty and inequality crises confronting South Africa.

Our immediate programme includes registration of Economic Freedom Fighters as a political party that will contest the 2014 election, mobilisation and recruitment of members, establishment of all Regional, Branch and Cell structures and formations of the Movement. Our immediate political programme includes building a strong movement of Community-based workers, youth, students, women, and sectoral formations and organisations that will proclaim economic freedom as their political programme.

Our immediate political programme will include joining in the movement that calls for total banning of labour brokers, total and practical rejection and boycott of eTolls, the fight against corruption, resistance to evictions and protest movement for better services in all communities. In light of the New Credit Act, we believe that all our people who have been black-listed must be immediately cleared and given a new start.

EFF takes note of the many ex-Mineworkers, particularly in the Northern and Eastern Cape, who due to their work in the Mines have contracted diseases and sickness. The EFF will take up practical programmes to seek economic justice and reparations for ex-mineworkers who are victims of the Mines.

The EFF will also pay particular attention to the marginalised minority, in particular the Coloured population, the Khoi and the San. EFF will particularly fight for the economic right of the Coloured people in the Western Cape to have access to fishing rights. EFF will join in the struggles of Coloured communities in the Northern and Western Cape, who are paid with alcohol for their work in the Wine Farms. EFF does not view and approach the Coloured population as a voting fodder, but as people who should be really integrated in the holistic development of their communities. The Khoi and the San should be recognised as a people and their language included in the Constitution as an official language.

The National Assembly condemns all manifestations of xenophobia and xenophobic attacks in our communities, and by the South African government. The manner in which the State relates to immigrants, particularly from the rest of Africa, is less than satisfactory. EFF will educate society on African unity and solidarity as a way of building a sustainable continent.

EFF will practically mobilise on the question of the remaining colonies in Africa and the Middle East. We call on Morocco to end its occupation and colonisation of Western Sahara. In the same breath, we call on the Apartheid state of Israel to end its racist occupation of Palestinian lands, and join in the call for the international isolation of the Israel through boycotts, divestment and sanctions until they end the occupation. Furthermore, we join the international call for the release of the Cuban Five and lifting of the trade embargo on the Cuba and its people. We also believe that all economic sanctions on Zimbabwe must be lifted and the people of Zimbabwe must be given a chance to enjoy the wealth of nations.

Our commitment to the development of the African continent and its people reclaiming their economic wealth is unwavering. The wind for political liberation in Africa blew from north to south, and the wind for economic emancipation should now blow from the south to the north. This wind should gain momentum in our lifetime and South Africa must be an inspiration to many other African countries to reclaim their wealth and economies from colonial and neo-colonial masters. We are the generation of Economic Freedom Fighters and our mission is attainment of Economic Freedom in Our Lifetime.

ISSUED BY ECONOMIC FREEDOM FIGHTERS

NATIONAL ASSEMBLY ON WHAT IS TO BE DONE

The delegates that came from all provinces understood and appreciated the significance and relevance of launching the EFF, and did not make demands usually associated with delegates to conferences. In the National Assembly that lasted for two days, only two meals were served to each delegate and the accommodation provided could only cater for female delegates, while the rest stayed up around the fire, chanting struggle slogans and readying themselves for the next day of the assembly.

The National Assembly was organised with practically no budget, because the paraphernalia such as T-shirts, berets, conference documents, banners and flags were taken on credit that would later be repaid through the sale of berets. A benevolent and humble entrepreneur whose business is not entirely dependent on tenders was able to rise above and provide all necessary assistance to the EFF, against threats from the ruling party and business associates who had begun to dissociate themselves from economic freedom fighters. The caterers also received payment long after the National Assembly because they understood that this was a platform for poor people who did not have resources. Some of the buses and taxis that had brought delegates to the National Assembly from as far as Port Elizabeth refused to take delegates back, demanding immediate payment, because there was no money to pay for their fuel.

Financial hurdles and difficulties did not dampen our fighting spirit because we understood and accepted that ours is a just cause and a struggle that should never be betrayed. An important highlight of the National Assembly was an official visit to the Hector Pieterson Memorial, 500 metres from where the National Assembly was held. At the memorial, the Commander-in-Chief Julius Malema made a commitment to Hector Pieterson and the 1976 generation of freedom fighters that EFF would pick up their spear and continue the struggle until total emancipation was achieved.

The next task for us was to officially launch the EFF as a political party. An agreement was reached that this would happen at Marikana as a salute and honour to the mineworkers who were killed by the ANC government. The date of the official public launch was set for 13 October 2013 and immediately our fighters were on the ground mobilising for the official launch.

The rally preparatory committee was presided over by the CiC Julius Malema and consisted of Fighters, Organisers and Commissars from the Central Command Team, the Provincial Command Team, the Regional Command Team and the Ward Command Teams of the surrounding wards. The workers of Marikana also designated representatives who would participate in the preparatory meetings, and the women of Marikana, led by an activist we all refer to as Mama Primrose, also participated in the preparations.

When the rally happened, we had only secured 70 buses which did 107 trips ferrying rally attendants from the Bojanala region of the North West Province. At all the pick-up points, hundreds of people who wished to attend the official public launch were left behind and all other regions and provinces organised their own transport. The rally opened with a prayer from Pastor Ralegolela, in front of more than 25 000 people at the Marikana Koppie.

From Marikana, we all knew that EFF as an organisation was destined for greatness and we were all galvanised in the certain knowledge that the struggle for economic freedom will triumph in our lifetime. The people who attended the launch rally enjoyed the festivities, and were all given food, mainly from the eight cattle we had slaughtered the day before.

What was particularly inspiring about the official launch in Marikana is the reality that the Ward Command Teams in Bojanala region collected an average of 700 names of people who were willing to attend the official launch rally and, because of the lack of money to pay for buses, at every pick-up point several hundred remained behind.

Ideological outlook and character of the EFF

“Always bear in mind that the people are not fighting for ideas, for the things in anyone’s head. They are fighting to win material benefits, to live better and in peace, to see their lives go forward, to guarantee the future of their children.” – Amilcar Cabral (1965)

 

Ideological reflections, character and content of political formations are the subject of constant engagements, and EFF appreciates this value. Constant ideological reflections help the organisation to grow and understand itself and society better, and most importantly, ideological discussions and reflections help in the clarification of tasks ahead. In the EFF, ideological discussions and reflections are always in appreciation of Amilcar Cabral’s emphasis to “Always bear in mind that the people are not fighting for ideas, for the things in anyone’s head. They are fighting to win material benefits, to live better and in peace, to see their lives go forward, to guarantee the future of their children.”²²

 

The Constitution of EFF adopted in the National Assembly states:

The basic programme of the EFF is the complete overthrow of the neoliberal anti-black state as well as the bourgeoisie and all other exploiting classes; the establishment of the dictatorship of the people in place of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and the triumph of socialism over capitalism. The ultimate aim of the EFF is the realization of socialism through people’s power and the establishment of a state that responds to the needs of its people. ²³

The Constitution goes on to say:

The EFF takes socialism as the theoretical basis guiding its thinking and development of its political line and in this respect identifies itself as a MARXIST, LENINIST, and FANONIAN organisation. Members of EFF, who dedicate their lives to the struggle for socialism, must be resolute, fearless and surmount every difficulty to win victory.²⁴

The following paragraphs derived from the EFF Founding Manifesto define succinctly the nature and character of EFF:

1. The ECONOMIC FREEDOM FIGHTERS is a radical and militant economic emancipation movement that brings together revolutionary, fearless, radical, and militant activists, workers’ movements, nongovernmental organisations, community-based organisations and lobby groups under the umbrella of pursuing the struggle for economic emancipation.
2. The EFF is a radical, leftist, anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist movement with an internationalist outlook anchored by popular grassroots formations and struggles. The EFF will be the vanguard of community and workers’ struggles and will always be on the side of the people. The EFF will, with determination and consistency, associate with the protest movement in South Africa and will also join in struggles that defy unjust laws.
3. The EFF takes lessons from the notation that “political power without economic emancipation is meaningless”. The movement is inspired by ideals that promote the practice of organic forms of political leadership, which appreciate that political leadership at whatever level is service, not an opportunity for self-enrichment and self-gratification.
4. The EFF draws inspiration from the broad Marxist-Leninist tradition and Fanonian schools of thought in their analyses of the state, imperialism, culture and class contradictions in every society. Through organic engagement and a constant relationship with the masses, Economic Freedom Fighters provide clear and cogent alternatives to the current neo-colonial economic system, which in many countries keeps the oppressed under colonial domination and subject to imperialist exploitation.²⁵

The EFF adoption of Marxist-Leninist-Fanonian thought as its guiding ideological and philosophical framework completes a historical process of developing revolutionary theory and practice. This development finally brings to rest the bitter ongoing acrimony from the Eurocentric and racist arrogance of the West. It is an arrogance that is not limited to the right wing, but also afflicts the white left globally. The EFF finally liberates Marxism and Leninism from the racist mindset that dictates that the African and black experiences must be viewed from the Western perspective and the horrors of anti-black racism and colonialism are reduced to a mere epiphenomenon. Bringing Fanon into the great duet of Marx and Lenin completes the anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist and anti-racist circle that is the only real basis for true liberation.

The triumvirate of Marx, Lenin and Fanon signify a breakthrough of historic significance in the struggle against capitalism and white supremacy; this ipso facto places EFF at the forefront of rethinking what it means to be free in the 21st century without abandoning the most important contributions in the battle against capitalism over the ages. There is no debate that Karl Marx is the foremost anti-capitalist theoretician of all times, it’s also no secret that Vladimir Lenin is the most accomplised implementer of Marxist thought and a student of state and revolution of the last century. Equally, there is little contest that Frantz Fanon is one of the most important thinkers on the race question.

EFF recognises the reality that to be Marxist-Leninist doesn’t insulate one from anti-black racism of itself. The history of Marxist practices in the Communist Parties has been by and large Eurocentric and tended to relegate the race question to the sidelines as not central to the endeavours of liberation and thereby erased the uniqueness of the black experience in the modern world, starting from the nightmare of slavery. Fanon in particular brings to the centre the African and black agenda to the great experience of the anti-capitalism struggle. Marx and Lenin, without Fanon, are Western figures; only the presence of Fanon completes this picture. This EFF ideological rubric does not present a hierarchy and must not be read in a hierarchical fashion; it must, instead, be understood as three equally important moments that constitute a composite whole.

Fanon’s most important contribution is not framed by an anti-Marxist ethic as some like to distort his magnificent clarity of thought. Fanon recognised that “Marxist analysis should always be slightly stretched every time we have to do with the colonial issue”. Fanon insists correctly that in colonial settings “… the economic substructure is also a superstructure. The cause is the consequence; you are rich because you are white, you are white because you are rich.” This formulation remains true for post-colonial societies that have chosen the path of neoliberalism. In these societies, such as South Africa, race still defines class by and large.

By adopting Marxist-Leninist-Fanonian thought, EFF is placed in the unique position to articulate black demands without shame or hesitation. EFF is not hobbled by concerns of what the white section of the anti-capitalist tradition thinks or feels, but it places black liberation at the core of its endeavours while extending an invitation to all peoples and races to participate in the struggle for economic emancipation for all. Accepting the uniqueness of the African experience liberates the language that shapes the demands that the EFF makes and the claims it presses against oppression. The meeting of Marx, Lenin and Fanon is the most wholesome development in the history of struggle against imperialism, capitalism and racism. This gift completing this circle may be recognised by generations of fighters to come as the most important gem of liberation.

The Marxist-Leninist tools of analysis and guide to action dictate that, as a movement, the EFF is fighting for socialism and there is no doubt about that. What we avoided in the founding manifesto was just a proclamation that we are a socialist movement, and chose to do so in the Constitution. We chose to explain in the Founding Manifesto the socialist content and character of our struggle, because the Founding Manifesto is our immediate socialist programme that, without substituting the seven cardinal pillars, will be discussed and reflected upon in the many assemblies of EFF that will follow. The Founding Manifesto’s cardinal pillars are a socialist programme. There are many movements in the world, including the Labour Party of Great Britain and the SACP of South Africa, that announce themselves as socialist or even communist while there is nothing that connects them to the programme for socialism.

Socialism is a transition from capitalism to communism, and the character and content of the socialist transition is a subject of debates and reflection in virtually all sections of the Left in South Africa and the world. More often than not, Left formations confuse the revolutionary socialist transition with the communist end point, where the principle will be “from each according to ability and to each according to needs”. The socialist transitional stage that the EFF as government will embark on is a complex process and, as a movement, we will be guided by the revolutionary Marxist perspective in our understanding and practice of socialism.

While there are many interpretations and, at times, deliberate distortions of the socialist transition, a phase Marx called the lower phase of communism in the Critique of the Gotha Programme, the EFF understands that in this phase there will still be wages and there should necessarily be development of the productive forces. Development of the productive forces will happen through what EFF defines as one of its cardinal pillars, “massive protected industrial development to create millions of sustainable jobs, including the introduction of minimum wages in order to close the wage gap between the rich and the poor, and to close the apartheid wage gap”.²⁶

Bringing this notion to coherence, McLellan illustrates that Marx’s Critique of the Gotha Programme sought to educate the Left forces in Germany that there is a distinction between socialist transition and the communist end stage. McLellan says that Marx “objected to the proposals in the Programme for redistributing the national product. In his view, talk about ‘fair distribution’ and ‘equal rights’ was vague; and proposals that the workers should receive the ‘undiminished proceeds of their labour’ showed a complete disregard for necessary expenditure on capital replacement, administration of social services, poor relief, etc.”²⁷

Now this is important to highlight because when EFF is in government and implementing a socialist programme, which will include minimum wages, expenditure on social services, poor relief and administration, forces that call themselves socialist will cry foul and demand that we should implement equal wages for all workers, despite their extent and level of contribution. This will be ignorance of basic Marxist principles on socialism, which necessarily should develop the productive forces through massive sustainable industrial development.

It is only in the communist stage, as Marx (1875) argues in The Critique of the Gotha Programme, “when the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly – only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: from each according to his [and her] ability, to each according to his [and her] needs!” (Marx, 1875). In the socialist transition (lower stage of communism), the principle will be from each according to his (and her) ability, to each according to the work performed (Marx, 1875). Now, that is a socialist principle, which unseasoned Marxists choose to ignore and reduce into insignificance.

Marx deals with the question of the development of the productive forces as essential in The Critique of the Gotha Programme and says, “In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labour, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labour, has vanished; after labour has become not only a means of life but life’s prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly – only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: from each according to his [and her] ability, to each according to his [and her] needs!”²⁸

In Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, Engels (1880) further addresses the question of what happens with the proletarian revolution. Engels says, “the proletariat seizes the public power, and by means of this transforms the socialized means of production, slipping from the hands of the bourgeoisie, into public property. By this act, the proletariat frees the means of production from the character of capital they have thus far borne, and gives their socialized character complete freedom to work itself out. Socialized production upon a predetermined plan becomes henceforth possible” (Engels, 1880).

Contrary to misleading propaganda, the EFF’s approach to nationalisation does not exclude socialisation of production, but as illustrated here, “the proletariat seizes the public power, and by means of this transforms the socialized means of production, slipping from the hands of the bourgeoisie, into public property” (Engels, 1880). The view that what should happen is the discontinuation of private ownership of mines and automatically declare them socialised is utopian and an ideological question that honest Left forces should reflect on, and avoid throwing stones that the EFF’s call for nationalisation is the be-all and end-all of our political and ideological programme. It is not.

The EFF’s call for nationalisation is clarified in the preface to the 2014 elections manifesto by CiC Julius Malema that “Central to our programme is a struggle for democratic ownership and control of the key means of production by the people. Our programme is socialist. As a Marxist-Leninist-Fanonian organisation, we believe that it is only through a socialist transformation programme that we will end the suffering of our people. Key components of this socialist programme are contained in our Election Manifesto” (EFF Elections Manifesto, 2014).

Furthermore, the section of the elections manifesto that deals with nationalisation of mines, banks and strategic sectors of the economy says, “EFF Government’s approach to nationalisation is that it should result in democratic and socialised ownership and control of the means of production by the workers, to avoid a situation where the state will exclusively own the means of production and suppress workers’ interests and aspirations” (EFF Elections Manifesto, 2014). The manifesto further commits to democratisation and greater workers’ control of the existing state-owned enterprises.

The literal misinterpretation of what Marxism and Marxism-Leninism are and entail, is a calamity that has led to the world’s condemnation of Marxism-Leninism as evil, insensitive, anti-freedom, anti-development, anti-creativity, anti-technological development. Lenin acknowledged the errors in his lifetime and admitted to the errors of forced collectivisation and wholesale nationalisation, which was replaced by the New Economic Policy (NEP). While not eroding the revolutionary content of the socialist revolution, the NEP acknowledged and appreciated from practice that certain things had to be done differently.

In the document published in 1921 titled The New Economic Policy: and the Tasks of the Political Education Departments, Lenin says:

At the beginning of 1918 we expected a period in which peaceful construction would be possible. When the Brest peace was signed it seemed that danger had subsided for a time and that it would be possible to start peaceful construction. But we were mistaken, because in 1918 a real military danger overtook us in the shape of the Czechoslovak mutiny and the outbreak of civil war, which dragged on until 1920. Partly owing to the war problems that overwhelmed us and partly owing to the desperate position in which the Republic found itself when the imperialist war ended – owing to these circumstances, and a number of others, we made the mistake of deciding to go over directly to communist production and distribution. We thought that under the surplus-food appropriation system the peasants would provide us with the required quantity of grain, which we could distribute among the factories and thus achieve communist production and distribution.²⁹

This related of course to the Soviet Union, but it is a mistake committed by revolutionary socialist movements all over the world. It is always advisable to learn from practical socialists who have dealt with the practical questions and realities, and not use Marxism-Leninism as a recipe or dogma. Lenin’s contribution to scientific socialism was through his recognition of practical questions and how those had to be programmatically addressed within a revolutionary programme of socialism.

We mention this because, in the pursuit of socialism, we do not want to make the mistakes that were made by socialists all over the world. We aim instead to derive key lessons from the mistakes made, and define a clear programme on how we move forward. We do not plan to impose collectivisation and forced labour amongst workers in the name of building socialism. We also do not want to disregard the rights and interests of workers in the name of building socialism. We also do not want to isolate ourselves from key global developments and opportunities in the name of building socialism.

The EFF does not want to impose what Karl Marx called “barracks communism”, with forced collectivism, disrespect of the individual and an authoritarian state. The socialist project we are in pursuit of does not mean that all people will be wearing the same clothes, walking the same way, and doing exactly the same things on the directives of a powerful bureaucracy that disrespects human rights. The EFF does not subscribe to despotism and will not in the socialist transformation of society cling to a one-party state and cult of personalities, because history has cogently illustrated that this undermines the freedom and rights of the very same people the revolution seeks to liberate.

The 1984 remark by Deng Xiaoping in the Sino-Japanese Council of Non-governmental Persons seems to have underpinned China’s growth and expansion in the last 30 years. In what was subsequently published as “Building Socialism with Chinese characteristics”, Xiaoping said:

What is socialism and what is Marxism? We were not quite clear about this in the past. Marxism attaches utmost importance to developing the productive forces. We have said that socialism is the primary stage of communism and that at the advanced stage the principle of from each according to his ability and to each according to his needs will be applied. This calls for highly developed productive forces and an overwhelming abundance of material wealth. Therefore, the fundamental task for the socialist stage is to develop the productive forces. The superiority of the socialist system is demonstrated, in the final analysis, by faster and greater development of those forces than under the capitalist system. As they develop, the people’s material and cultural life will constantly improve. One of our shortcomings after the founding of the People’s Republic was that we didn’t pay enough attention to developing the productive forces. Socialism means eliminating poverty. Pauperism is not socialism, still less communism.³⁰

The scientific socialism EFF subscribes to should necessarily lead to the development of the productive forces, and ensure greater workers’ control of the economy, and we have no hesitation about saying that. There are various interpretations and even distortions of what Deng Xiaoping meant, but an observation he made that “Socialism means eliminating poverty. Pauperism is not socialism, still less communism” is correct. There are also areas where China can make significant progress, particularly on democratic participation of the people in the economy and society, yet its rapid industrial development, agrarian reform, and state-led economic expansion since 1978 are admirable. China moved from being 100th in the world economy in 1978 to the 2nd biggest economy in the world today.

Our aim is to defeat the racial capitalism that began with colonialism in South Africa, and that was consolidated and continued under apartheid oppression. As an anti-capitalist and socialist movement, the EFF is required to thoroughly understand the nature and character of South African capitalism in order to know what kind of an animal we are dealing with in the struggle for socialism.

The nature and character of capitalism in South Africa should be thoroughly understood because political formations that call themselves socialist in South Africa held a view for a very long time that the transition between capitalism and socialism needs a stage called the national democratic revolution. This was largely due to the misunderstanding of the Marxist-Leninist approach to the national question and what later was the Stalinist approach to the national question.

Our view is not opposed to a national democratic revolution, as long as that national democratic revolution is located within the context of a Marxist-Leninist approach to the national question. Formations that call themselves socialist or communist in South Africa, including the most progressive Trade Unions, held these to be the same and believed that there should be a transitional stage between capitalism and socialism. Perhaps we should highlight the key differences.

Now this is what the EFF refers to as the Marxist-Leninist approach to the national question, which is broadly consistent with Marx’s view on the Russian question. In an 1881 letter to Zasulich, this is how Marx (1881) dealt with this question:

Theoretically speaking, then, the Russian “rural commune” can preserve itself by developing its basis, the common ownership of land, and by eliminating the principle of private property which it also implies; it can become a direct point of departure for the economic system towards which modern society tends; it can turn over a new leaf without beginning by committing suicide; it can gain possession of the fruits with which capitalist production has enriched mankind, without passing through a capitalist regime, a regime which, considered solely from the point of view of its possible duration, hardly counts in the life of society. But we must descend from pure theory to the Russian reality.³¹

Now, Marx, Engels and importantly Lenin dealt substantially with the question of what socialism is, and all agreed that it is nothing but a revolutionary transition from a capitalist society to a communist one. With regards to colonial and semi-colonial contexts of underdeveloped productive forces, Marxism-Leninism accepted that the revolutionary forces should not wait for capitalism to develop. Under these circumstances, it becomes the role of the Socialist state to develop the productive forces, i.e. industrial development.

At the Second Congress of the Communist International in 1920, Lenin dealt with the national and colonial questions in a rather different way and said:

can we accept as correct the idea that the capitalist development of the economy is necessary for those backward peoples who are now liberating themselves and among whom now, following the war, progressive movements have developed? …. We must not only build cadres and parties in all colonies and backward countries, we must not only immediately propagate peasants’ councils and try to make soviet organisations fit pre-capitalist conditions, but theoretically the Communist International must also declare and explain that with the help of the proletariat of the advanced countries the backward countries can arrive at soviet organisation and, through a series of stages, and even avoiding the capitalist system, can arrive at Communism.³²

Lenin held this view because “a certain understanding has emerged between the bourgeoisie of the exploiting countries and that of the colonies, so that very often, even perhaps in most cases, the bourgeoisie of the oppressed countries, although they also support national movements, nevertheless fight against all revolutionary movements and revolutionary classes with a certain degree of understanding and agreement with the imperialist bourgeoisie, that is to say together with it”.³³

This accurate Leninist observation was made by Frantz Fanon who, in 1960, in The Pitfalls of National Consciousness, said, “the national middle class which takes over power at the end of the colonial regime is an underdeveloped middle class. It has practically no economic power, and in any case it is in no way commensurate (or equal) with the bourgeoisie (or capitalists) of the mother country which it hopes to replace. In its woeful narcissism (or selfishness) the national middle class is easily convinced that it can adventurously replace the middle class of the mother country. But that same independence which literally drives it into a corner will give rise within its ranks to catastrophic reactions, and will oblige it to send out frenzied (or hyperactive) appeals for help to the former mother countries.”³⁴

Frantz Fanon, in the same article, says, “The objective of nationalist parties as from a certain given period is, we have seen, strictly national. They mobilize the people with slogans of independence, and for the rest leave it to future events. When such parties are questioned on the economic programme of the state that they are clamouring for, or on the nature of the regime which they propose to install, they are incapable of replying, because, precisely, they are completely ignorant of the economy of their own country.”³⁵

This therefore calls on us as economic freedom fighters to thoroughly understand the nature and character of capitalism in South Africa, so as to avoid the mishaps of the nationalist parties, which have no sense of what they are dealing with.

To start with, South Africa is a capitalist country, yet the colonial character of South Africa’s capitalism entails that the productive forces are not fully developed. South Africa is therefore a semi-colonial capitalist country with relatively underdeveloped productive forces. This means that South Africa does not have adequate industry and economic activity to sustain itself, and instead is forced to rely heavily on the importation of finished goods and services because internally the country cannot produce even enough food to feed the nation. The food aspect is based on a comparison with China, which employs 300 million people in agriculture (20% of the population) out of 1.4 billion against South Africa’s 700 000 (less than 2% of the population) of the 52 million citizens.

The emergence of capitalism in South Africa predates the introduction of racial segregation and both of these predate the emergence of apartheid. Apartheid is a socio-political system of racial and racist exclusion, discrimination, suppression, oppression and exploitation of the black and African majority by a set of rules and brutal actions of the white minorities in South Africa. Apartheid was a means to consolidate and continue the racial capitalism that had been definitive of South Africa since the beginning of capitalism in the country.

The notion of apartheid as a consolidation of racial capitalism in the political territory should be understood within the context that the very unity between the four colonies of Transvaal, Orange Free State, Cape and Natal that formed the Union of South Africa in 1910 was another major step to consolidate racial capitalism, which had begun with the arrival of settlers in the 17th century, at the service of and to the benefit of foreign empires. The laws and legislations that were passed by parliaments in this regard were a consolidation of the conquest that had been in place since the battles and wars of dispossession were fought and won by the colonial settlers.

Apartheid was in itself not the beginning of racial capitalism, but the most brutal political, social and economic form of racial capitalism, which had been definitive of South Africa since the emergence of capitalist mode of production. Its segregationist laws, legislations and practices affected those pre-capitalist sectors, mainly for the continued supply of cheap labour to the mines and farms.

It is important to highlight the fact that South Africa’s capitalism emerged, consolidated and triumphed against the backdrop of racial segregation. It was primarily capitalist interests which gave shape and content to the many racial segregation policies that followed colonial conquest and subjugation of the black majority and Africans in particular. Political systems were designed to legitimate the continued exploitation of black labourers, preserve private property and guarantee continued profitability of factions of capitalist interests, mainly centred on the extraction of mineral resources.

After the discovery of mineral resources in South Africa, mining capitalists were the first through the Chamber of Mines to advocate racial segregation. Following the Glen Gray Act of 1894, which compelled Africans to pay taxes and rents as a way of forcing them into wage-labour, particularly in the mines, the Chamber of Mines was the first South African capitalist entity, representing mining capital, to push for legislation that excluded Africans from mainstream economic participation.

Lipton (1986) illustrates that:

the mines, like the white farms, had immense difficulty securing sufficient labour at a price that it was economic for them to pay. Mine owners, like white farmers, therefore tried to find ways of forcing blacks to work for them, and of reducing the competition from higher urban wages. They supported restrictions on black land ownership, as well as taxes to force them to work for cash wages. Cecil Rhodes, leading mine owner and Premier of the Cape Colony, sponsored the 1894 Glen Grey Act … its land tenure and tax provisions would, he said, act as a “gentle stimulant” to blacks to work and “to remove them from the life of sloth and laziness … teach them the dignity of labour… and make them give some return for our wise and good government”.³⁶

Furthermore, mine owners supported the 1913 Land Act, and as Lipton (1986) illustrates, the President of Chamber of Mines argued that the 1913 Land Act will ensure that “the surplus of young men, instead of squatting on the land in idleness … earn their living by working for a wage”.³⁷ It is therefore these capitalist interests that planted the tree of racial capitalism that, when managed by the apartheid government after 1948, became more politically, socially and economically oppressive, brutal and exploitative, eventually drawing international condemnation.

In return, “The state, both pre-war and under apartheid, supported the Chamber of Mines in its monopsonistic recruitment of labour throughout Southern Africa, by making absconding from mining contracts illegal, and by brutally suppressing African trade unions. Even so, the mining industry consistently railed against the job colour bar which restricted skilled jobs for white workers, thereby driving up skilled wages and reducing the room for wage increases for African workers.”³⁸

What the Chamber of Mines’ declaration meant was that racial segregation was the most suitable system for aggressive capitalist exploitation and guaranteed continued capitalist interests, and needed huge numbers of cheap labourers. This came to define the nature and character of South Africa’s racial capitalism, the continued profitability and sustenance of which relied on a supply of cheap labour and reserves that supported this labour structure.

It has been generally and correctly accepted that apartheid was a system that safeguarded capitalist interests, implemented and buttressed by racist legislation aimed at securing cheap labour, particularly for the agriculture and mining sectors (Alexander 2002). Alexander (2002) correctly argues that “the whole edifice of repressive laws and bureaucratic structures, ranging from ‘native reserves’ and Bantustans at the one end to the ludicrous details of ‘petty apartheid’, such as separate post office queues and cemeteries, is explicable ultimately in terms of a racist logic, the end of which was to guarantee cheap black labour and the continued profitability of ‘maize and gold’.”³⁹

The notion of apartheid as a consolidation of a racialised capitalist order was accepted and internalised by big business and their representatives who, when confronted with the illegitimacy of apartheid, conceded reforms that would abolish the legalistic and legislated part of apartheid, while retaining economic power and wealth. This allowed the exploitative relationship between capital and labour to remain fundamentally unchanged.

The ANC-led National Liberation Movement (NLM) had accepted that racial domination in South Africa was underpinned by class exploitation, which defined the apartheid economic system. While not steadfast and consistent in its ideological commitments and approach to the South African struggle, the ANC held the perspective that apartheid was primarily class or capitalist exploitation, the destruction of which would end economic exploitation. This view was generally held in the NLM until the period of transition to an inclusive political system.

That was reflected in the ANC Strategy & Tactics document, adopted in the Morogoro Conference in 1969:

In our country – more than in any other part of the oppressed world – it is inconceivable for liberation to have meaning without a return of the wealth of the land to the people as a whole. It is therefore a fundamental feature of our strategy that victory must embrace more than formal political democracy. To allow the existing economic forces to retain their interests intact is to feed the root of racial supremacy and does not represent even the shadow of liberation.⁴⁰

The essence of this notion is that racialised capitalism in South Africa predates apartheid, and even predates the Union of South Africa. Apartheid was therefore a political system that sought to consolidate and continue racialised capitalism through laws, legislations and regulations that ossified the exploitation of blacks; a system of subjugation and even bastardisation through forms that would suppress any emergence of a counterforce to overthrow the capitalist system.

While apartheid was racial capitalism, it is important to highlight another aspect of South Africa’s unique and specific racialised capitalism. In understanding this, it is helpful to refer to Professor Ben Fine’s explanation of the Minerals Energy Complex (MEC):

It is the specifically South African system of accumulation that has been centred on core sectors around, but more wide-ranging than, mining and energy, evolving with a character and dynamic of its own that has shifted over time. Its history and consequences can be traced back to the emergence of mining in the 1870s through to the present day. In the interwar and immediate post-war period, core MEC sectors drove the economy, furnishing a surplus for the protection and growth and, ultimately, incorporation of Afrikaner capital. State corporations in electricity, steel, transport and so on, represented an accommodation across the economic power of the mining conglomerates and the political power of the Afrikaners, an uneasy compromise of evolving fractions of classes and their interests forged through both state and market.⁴¹

Giving a more cogent argument on this question, Professor Patrick Bond (2000) illustrates that “the ‘Minerals Energy Complex’ [comprises] the core quarter of the economy since the late 19th century, encompassing gold, coal, petrochemicals, electricity generation, beneficiated metals products, mining machinery and some other, closely-related manufactured outputs – remains South Africa’s economic base”. This indeed is the basis of South Africa’s capitalism and any analysis of the character and content of South African capitalism that ignores this must necessarily be incorrect.

Fine argues that “The MEC is the system of accumulation that was inherited by post-apartheid South Africa, and it has survived more or less intact over the post-apartheid period. This is not to say it has remained unchanged, quite the opposite, just as it has experienced significant change in the past. Unfortunately, those changes have, however, reflected the extent to which South Africa is the exact opposite of a development state and has been driven further away from being so.”⁴²

This argument resonates in South Africa today because a radical socio-economic redistribution programme should necessarily be about deconstructing the MEC, and not about black economic empowerment.

Deconstruction of the MEC entails economic diversification through industrial development in sectors other than in the minerals and energy sectors. This is important to highlight because if this had happened after 1994 in a thoroughgoing industrial development process that included state leadership and participation of all South Africans, liberal economist Seekings (2012) would be justified in arguing that race no longer structures economic advantage and disadvantage. The very fact that the MEC, as Fine (2012) argues, remains intact means that the economic conditions that prevailed for different races before 1994 are still predominantly present.

The continued dominance of the Minerals Energy Complex is important as it condemns other industrial sectors to insignificance. These are sectors that could create sustainable jobs for the millions of jobless South Africans. The reality that South Africa continues to be an exporter of primarily natural resources in the minerals and energy sector is perfectly illustrated by the table below, which shows the trade relationship between South Africa and China, its biggest trading partner.

This trade relationship is primarily what EFF seeks to change through massive industrial development and expansion; and importantly through beneficiation and industrialisation of natural resources into finished goods and services. Continued exportation of natural resources means that South Africa is still a colonial economy where natural resources are sought for the development of developing and developed economies.

While discussed in theory, no political formation has ever set as its objective the aim of deconstructing the Minerals Energy Complex. A close reading of the EFF’s Founding and Elections manifestos sets out how we plan to do so.

Top ten South African exports to and imports from China as of 2011

 

An important feature of South African capitalism is that it is concentrated in a few hands, and controlled by relatively few corporations and individuals, some of whom played a critical role in ushering in political reforms which safeguarded their interests and aspirations. Nattrass and Seekings (2010) illustrate that “apartheid produced an almost entirely white business elite. These elites were highly concentrated in terms of corporate ownership and control. In 1994, the giant, mining-based Anglo American controlled 44% of the entire capitalisation of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, whilst the top five corporate groups together controlled 84%.”⁴³

The concentration of capital in a few hands meant that when these owners of the key means of production realised that apartheid was a threat to their businesses and profitability, they had to step in to change the system. The Oppenheimer family and the Rupert family are among the most powerful in this elite group, and all wield tremendous economic power, and had the capacity to mobilise other economic interests behind the notion of ending apartheid.

The EFF aims to deal decisively with capitalist relations. This will happen through the mechanisms of mass support political power, state control, and revision of capitalist property relations that are the basis of massive poverty, and oppression. The current government still believes that socio-economic progress and emancipation can happen under a capitalist system, yet it is evident that capitalism has failed the people of South Africa. It will also fail in the future.

The post-1994 government vested much trust and confidence in the private sector, and adopted macro-economic policies such as the Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) policy to create an environment that is conducive for private investors to invest, create jobs and deal decisively with unemployment and poverty. This never happened because global capital focused on speculative investments, which added no value to the real expansion of the economy in a labour absorptive model that could have created jobs. The private sector cannot be entrusted with labour-absorptive industrial development because their focus and interests are instant profit maximisation at the expense of everything developmental, and the wellbeing of ordinary workers.

When the ANC legitimacy is in crisis and the masses rise up against it in the coming revolution, capitalists will try to substitute the ANC with political office-bearers who will protect capitalist interests. All significant political parties in South Africa’s parliament today are on the side of protecting capitalist control of South Africa. When the EFF goes to the National Assembly and all Provincial Legislatures after the 2014 general elections, it will not wait and is not waiting to be the substitutes or puppets of capitalist interests. As a movement of the working class, the EFF aims to seize power for the working class and serve their interests in the socialist transformation of South Africa.

The EFF Founding Manifesto says, “The working class, South Africans who do not own the means of production, the dejected masses, the homeless, hopeless youth, the rural and urban poor, the informal settlement dwellers, the unemployed and underemployed population, the discriminated and undermined professionals of all races, constitute the core component of those whom Economic Freedom Fighters seek to emancipate from economic and social subjugation and oppression”.⁴⁴

These are the very sections of society which the EFF aims to mobilise so that they may become their own liberators. An unfortunate reality about the South African working class is that it has historically been fractured along racial lines, and the EFF Manifesto makes that acknowledgement in the segmentation of various components of the working class. Historically, the white working class has always sought to exclusively protect its interests against capitalist exploitation, but also to protect their interests from black workers. The slogan of the Communist Party of South Africa during the Rand Rebellion of 1922 was “Workers of the world unite for a white South Africa”.

The EFF aims to emancipate all sections of the working class irrespective of race. This, however, does not blind us to the fact that the oppression of black workers happened with the approval and benefit of the white working class. The white Left in South Africa will ignore this fact and argue that the EFF is fragmenting the working class. This is something that we do not intend to do. This is not unfamiliar because historically the white Left has played a divisive role in the struggle for national liberation and always sought to discourage decisive revolutionary action, sometimes on linguistic and conceptual bases of what constitutes a revolutionary struggle.

The EFF rejects the notion that only a certain section of the working class can carry out a revolutionary socialist programme. Such a notion is not only false but ahistorical if looked at from the points of view of the Russian, Chinese and even Cuban revolutions. These are debates and discussions that all Left and working class formations should honestly reflect on, as ultimately working-class unity will be important for the victory of socialist forces. Also from a theoretical point of view, there is a misreading of the Communist Manifesto’s assertion that, “Of all the classes that stand face-to-face with the bourgeoisie today, the proletariat alone is a really revolutionary class. The other classes decay and finally disappear in the face of modern industry; the proletariat is its special and essential product.”⁴⁵

Marx (1875) dismisses this notion as “nonsense” and says about this Communist Manifesto proclamation that “the bourgeoisie is here conceived as a revolutionary class – as the bearer of large-scale industry – relative to the feudal lords and the lower middle class, who desire to maintain all social positions that are the creation of obsolete modes of production. Thus, they do not form together with the bourgeoisie ‘only one reactionary mass’. On the other hand, the proletariat is revolutionary relative to the bourgeoisie because, having itself grown up on the basis of large-scale industry, it strives to strip off from production the capitalist character that the bourgeoisie seeks to perpetuate. But the Manifesto adds that the ‘lower middle class’ is becoming revolutionary ‘in view of [its] impending transfer to the proletariat’. From this point of view, therefore, it is again nonsense to say that it, together with the bourgeoisie, and with the feudal lords into the bargain, ‘form only one reactionary mass’ relative to the working class. Has one proclaimed to the artisan, small manufacturers, etc., and peasants during the last elections: Relative to us, you, together with the bourgeoisie and feudal lords, form one reactionary mass?”⁴⁶

Here, Marx (1875) was dealing with the Gotha Programme proclamation that “the emancipation of labour must be the work of the working class, relative to which all other classes are only one reactionary mass”, which was a proclamation of the German socialists who believed that what they were pursuing was in line with socialist principles. EFF has to condemn such notions as “nonsense” too because there seem to be emergent forces, whose political programme is genuine, yet seek to believe that other strata, such as the unemployed youth and informal settlement dwellers, cannot be part of the socialist revolution that will happen in South Africa.

Economic freedom is incomplete unless it manifests in the empowerment of women and the girl child. South African society has earned a reputation as the most unsafe country in the world for women. This kind of situation is only comparable to war-torn societies; the levels of rape, particularly of infants and the elderly, are appalling in South Africa. This means that one of the urgent tasks of economic freedom fighters is the resolution of the precarious and violent conditions faced by women, in a manner that deals with the underlying social ills that give rise to this crisis.

The struggles of the working class in South Africa should include all sections of the working class, because such is a political struggle for mass power, to win political power, capture the state, transform it, and democratise the economy. All sections of the working class, including the unemployed, the underemployed, and employed working class, should be united in the struggle for socialism and none of these sections of the working class should hold exclusive rights to fight for socialism.

A further interrogation of this problem reveals that most of the violence against women, particularly rape, occurs in poverty-stricken communities and is linked to policing problems as well. Revolutionaries adopt a materialist feminist conception of the gender problem which departs from an emphasis on the patronising liberal discourse of a rights-based approach. This assumes that all we need for the emancipation of women is a set of rights and judicial practices. Also its diagnosis of rape rests on the critique of the libido, an argument which often collapses into discriminatory analyses of the poor as sexual pests or anti-black racist analyses that view black men as unable to control their sexual urges.

The violence suffered by women, which in South Africa results in high levels of rape, is structural and must be approached from that perspective. The approach must be to economically liberate society in ways that empower women to be as independent and self-reliant as possible. This does not mean going on with the business of economic emancipation, hoping it will automatically translate into women’s emancipation. Rather, it means setting out from the beginning a clear programme informed by the need to have a focus on women’s rights.

The emancipation of women as fully equal counterparts in society no longer rests on passing more and more legislation only, it rests on economic self-sufficiency that allows women to participate in the direction and redirection of the means of safety and security, as well as production.

Our usage of Marxist-Leninist-Fanonian tools of analysis and guides to action constitute an elementary feature of the struggle for economic freedom in our lifetime. Replacement of these tools of analysis will subject our movement to a shapeless organisation, only obsessed with the attainment of political power and no real transformation of the state and society for the benefit of all.

At Marx’s grave, Engels stated that his friend’s great discovery was that “mankind must first of all eat, drink, have shelter and clothing, and therefore work before it can pursue politics, science, art, religion etc”.⁴⁷ Further than this materialistic assertion, Engels presaged that “Marxism is not just content with understanding how the world works but seeks to give people the ability, collectively, to change it more effectively”; the view expressed by Marx himself. Furthermore, Marxism sets out not to be just a theory, and Engels made a very important acknowledgment thereof, that “Our theory (i.e. Marxism) is not a dogma, but a guide to action”.⁴⁸

To the EFF, Marxist-Leninis-Fanonian tools of analysis and guides to action are not dogma but ideological instruments that will guarantee our movement political and economic victory over the bourgeoisie. Such will emancipate the people of South Africa from poverty and inspire the people of the oppressed and exploited world to take up the struggle for real economic emancipation, which can only be realised through socialist transformation into a communist society where the principle will be “from each according to his ability to each according to his needs”.

EFF’s approach to alliances

The EFF elections strategy we adopted at the Donkerhoek strategic planning meeting in the North West on 6 October 2013 reports the following about strategic and tactical relations:

“As a Movement, and not a narrow Political Party, EFF’s sustenance, continuity and relevance, the organisation should form both strategic and tactical collaborations with existing organisations, particularly progressive political parties, civil society formations, trade unions, community based organisations, religious organisations, sporting organisations and social clubs.

The principles of STRATEGIC collaborations are that:

a) The organisations should agree with the 7 cardinal pillars for economic freedom in our lifetime.

b) Majority of members of such organisations should be willing to join EFF as members and can be invited to strategic internal meetings of the organisation.

c) Will not externally condemn EFF and will always use internal platforms to raise issues they have concerns with.

d) Will partake in the list processes of EFF and will have some of their members deployed under the discipline and guidance of EFF as public representatives.

The principles of TACTICAL collaborations are that:

a) The organisations share common vision and views on some, not all, the strategic issues in the EFF Founding Manifesto.

b) Can criticise EFF publicly, but after having raised concerns with EFF before going public.

c) Will retain independence and operation as an organisation, while agreeing with some of the key issues promulgated by the organisation” (EFF, 2013d).

This is the basis of how EFF approaches alliances and relationships, and this explains how we meet and talk with all political formations in our efforts to win political power. As a matter of principle and policy, the EFF would never enter into a strategic alliance with formations that are right-wing and capitalist in nature and character, but for the fulfilment of political consolidation, the organisation will do so.

Our meeting with the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) falls within the tactical relations category, and the EFF War Council alongside the Provincial Command Team (PCT) of KwaZulu-Natal met with the National Leadership of the IFP to discuss issues relating to elections and access to areas we could otherwise not have. We agreed to protect each other during elections and we agreed too that the Independent Electoral Commission is not providing a level playing field for free and fair elections. The EFF meeting with the IFP was not a strategic meeting and will not lead to any merger, because of our different ideological perspectives.

EFF will, however, engage with all working-class formations to consolidate working class and Left forces in a programme to seize political power and capture the state to continue with the programme for a socialist transformation of South Africa, the key pillars of which are contained in the Founding Manifesto. EFF does not see itself as the be-all and end-all of revolutionary politics in South Africa and does not hold a view that we, and we alone, hold the exclusive rights to lead the struggles of the working class in the fight for socialism.

This is important to highlight because in South Africa there has emerged a tendency propagated particularly by the white academic Left, that seeks to rubbish and denigrate all forms of Left programmes and political action that they do not control. There seems to be a coordinated effort to undermine and trivialise left formations such as the EFF, mainly through theoretical and linguistic dismissal of what genuine and Left formations stand for. There is no effort from this section of society to constructively engage with Left forces that proclaim socialism as their vision, but rather a culture of waiting for these Left forces to make linguistic and theoretical mistakes and attack them on that basis.

This has been an historical basis in South African politics because, more than anything, the breakaway of the Pan Africanist Congress from the ANC in the late 1950s was partly due to what Robert Sobukwe and the so-called Africanist faction perceived to be the dominance of the white Left in the ANC. More so, the white Left always propagates what seem to be revolutionary phrases and arguments, and becomes anxious and impotent at the point of real action. They often believe that they should spoon-feed revolutionary social movements, unions and political parties with readymade ideological tools of analysis and programmes. There still exist both formidable and insignificant Left formations, unions and social movements in South Africa that are under the ideological and political control of the white Left, and such should come to an end.

When we made the clarion call, we invited all progressive formations, and wrote specifically to the academics largely perceived to be on the Left, advising them to make inputs on the Founding Manifesto. None of those made inputs, but we received useful inputs from black professors and academics who advised on key ideological and theoretical questions. The white Left stood on the sidelines and were the first to throw stones at the EFF after our initial successes, labelling the organisation “fascist”. We were not shocked because even on the previous political platforms, it was primarily the minority white sections of the ANC that dismissed the call for nationalisation of mines as an effort of black business people to save their struggling mines.

Our approach is that all forces of the Left should discuss and debate amongst themselves and develop a common programme towards real emancipation of the people of South Africa. Our approach to Left politics and mobilisation is not hubris, but will never be locked behind fancy boardrooms discussing strategy forever; we will always take action to test the practicality of our revolutionary actions and activities. We will never treat radical and Left forces on the basis of their race, but what has transpired thus far is a continued undermining of exclusively black Left forces on a theoretical basis and on the basis of language and English grammar. The left forces that are blind to this phenomenon will in the future realise that we need to unite on programmes, not linguistic limitations, because English is not our first language.

The significance of the red beret

Since its introduction, the EFF has been associated with the red beret as the symbol of its struggles, militancy and radicalism. Never before in the history of South African politics has a symbol so captured the imagination of the people and society. Millions of berets are all over South Africa and those who wear them do so with pride and conviction. For the EFF, the red beret is not just an item of clothing, but a symbol of commitment to the struggle with desired values and conduct. This therefore calls for a political revolutionary code of conduct on who the real fighters for economic freedom are.

These key principles and values of what guides a fighter should be exercised with maximum discipline in the context of understanding, internalising and accepting discipline not as a side issue, but as a vehicle that will make the EFF realise all its objectives in our lifetime.

The EFF Constitution obliges all members to “constantly and continuously strive to raise the level of her/his own political consciousness and understanding of EFF Policies, Resolutions, Rules and Regulations”. Within this context, all Revolutionary Fighters should be defined by the following values:

• Sophistication and simplicity to understand and explain the modern economy and systems of government and ability to generate new ideas and solutions.
• Understanding of the nature and character of imperialism in the face of attempts to re-colonise the African continent.
• Versatility that appeals to all South Africans, old and young.
• Acceptable behaviour and conduct to appeal to all South Africans.
• Fearlessness of the previous oppressor and imperialism.

This therefore means that all Revolutionary Fighters should be able to know and understand the key documents of EFF, particularly the Founding Manifesto and the Constitution. All Revolutionary Fighters should know and be able to explain the seven cardinal pillars for economic freedom in our lifetime without reading from any script. Fighters should be able to localise and explain what each and every pillar means to the lives of the people on the ground and in their own locales.

FIGHTERS AS COMMUNITY ACTIVISTS AND CARING INDIVIDUALS:

• Partake in community struggles and activities. This means that a revolutionary fighter will always be in the fore at community events and activities.
• Always know the exact details of their community, including the number of people in their wards and the challenges the majority of the people confront in the ward.
• Always willing to listen to the concerns of the people and find solutions to help the people.
• Always available for genuine protests and mass actions in their community.

VALUES THAT DEFINE A FIGHTER:

1. A Revolutionary Fighter is an organiser who knows how to move crowds towards mass revolutionary action.

2. A Revolutionary Fighter is a well informed/knowledgeable professional in the way he/she approaches the political question of revolution.

3. A Revolutionary Fighter is the one who abolishes his/her ego and his/her attachments to personal success and achievements; s/he is selfless and one with the people.

4. A Revolutionary Fighter is the one who believes that Revolutionary morality is the core of the revolutionary belief-system, revolution by any means necessary.

5. A Revolutionary Fighter is never depressed, bored, and sad; there is always something to do, there are always revolutionary actions to take up and advance.

6. A revolutionary Fighter does not hold grudges or always complain about unnecessary matters.

7. A revolutionary fighter always reads and listens to people to understand the struggles and suffering of the people on the ground.

8. A Revolutionary Fighter knows his community, neighbours and details of the challenges they confront on a daily basis.

9. A revolutionary fighter that is charitable and practises the principle of the left hand must never know what the right hand is doing.

10. A revolutionary fighter is the one that does not dwell in the conspicuous consumerist practices that seek to blindly show-off privilege.

11. A revolutionary fighter leads by example and does everything with integrity.

12. A revolutionary fighter is an internationalist who seeks all the time to connect local struggles to international struggles.

These are the values that define those who wear the EFF red beret, and should be the DNA of all fighters for economic freedom.

Conclusion

This narrative is a necessary and relevant reflection on the struggle for economic freedom in South Africa. That we are the ones who tell this story is important because on many occasions there have been deliberate distortions and a caricature version of what the struggle for economic freedom is and what it entails. Many academics, on both the left and right of the ideological spectrum, have sought to systematically denigrate the struggle for economic freedom in our lifetime. This is often based on class and racial prejudices and a warped, prejudicial perception that the African majority cannot organise themselves to fight a struggle without white people’s assistance.

The struggle for economic freedom did not start with the EFF, and did not start with the ANC Youth League; it is a struggle that has been part of the many wars and battles of resistance in South Africa, across generations and geography. The struggle assumed different forms and content in various periods of history. As this generation of economic freedom fighters, we took the baton from previous generations and are now on the path towards consolidation of the partial victory of 1994 and will fight courageously and with commitment until attainment of total emancipation of the people of South Africa is achieved.

There is no doubt that the struggles waged by political liberation fighters in South Africa and on the African continent are worth celebrating. But the reality is that liberation movements are not capable of resolving the massive economic inequalities they have inherited from their colonial past. Any country on the African continent that has realised political emancipation has experienced the inability of their party of liberation to take the struggle forward, and especially towards economic freedom.

The inability of liberation movements to economically emancipate humanity was predicted by great revolutionaries and ideologues such as Vladimir Lenin, who in 1920 said, “A certain understanding has emerged between the bourgeoisie of the exploiting countries and that of the colonies, so that very often, even perhaps in most cases, the bourgeoisie of the oppressed countries, although they also support national movements, nevertheless fight against all revolutionary movements and revolutionary classes with a certain degree of understanding and agreement with the imperialist bourgeoisie, that is to say together with it.”⁴⁹

Franz Fanon, who, in 1961, reiterated this Leninist observation in The Pitfalls of National Consciousness, said, “the national middle class which takes over power at the end of the colonial regime is an underdeveloped middle class. It has practically no economic power, and in any case it is in no way commensurate (or equal) with the bourgeoisie (or capitalists) of the mother country which it hopes to replace. In its woeful narcissism (or selfishness) the national middle class is easily convinced that it can adventurously replace the middle class of the mother country. But that same independence which literally drives it into a corner will give rise within its ranks to catastrophic reactions, and will oblige it to send out frenzied (or hyperactive) appeals for help to the former mother countries.”⁵⁰

Fanon goes on to say, “The objective of nationalist parties as from a certain given period is, we have seen, strictly national. They mobilize the people with slogans of independence, and for the rest leave it to future events. When such parties are questioned on the economic programme of the state that they are clamouring for, or on the nature of the regime which they propose to install, they are incapable of replying, because, precisely, they are completely ignorant of the economy of their own country.”⁵¹

These analyses from revolutionary intellectuals inform and dictate the political and ideological programme of the Economic Freedom Fighters. Attempts to radicalise and turn the Nationalist Movement in South Africa have failed dismally and it is not true that the Nationalist Movement will ever develop greater consciousness and political determination than that which it has thus far developed. The outcome of conference after conference and policy after policy takes nationalist movements to the same conclusions, that imperialist domination cannot be defeated.

Our immediate task is to expose the widely held view in South Africa that the current ANC policies are good, and that the fault lies solely with implementation. Such false dogma merely serves to protect white supremacy through protection of their economic interests and is counter to delivering economic prosperity for all. Policies that promote neo-liberalism and blind following of the dictates of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund cannot be good policies. Policies that keep an absolute majority of our people unemployed and in starvation cannot be good. Policies that deny young entrepreneurs access to enterprise finance without sureties, which most young people do not have, cannot be good. Policies that keep workers’ wages in the mining sector, farms, factories, the police service, soldiers, teachers, doctors, nurses, private security, and petrol attendants so low cannot be good.

While South Africa has one of the highest levels of unemployment in the world, it also boasts the highest levels of underemployment. The conditions and wages which mineworkers, farm workers, private security guards, domestic workers and construction workers are subject to are unreasonable and inhumane. There can be no credible explanation to justify that mineworkers in Marikana and elsewhere in South Africa live and stay in informal settlements with no electricity, no running water, no sanitation, no schools, no playgrounds, no healthcare facilities, while they work under the most difficult conditions.

How do you explain that mineworkers are paid as little as R4000 per month while they work under life-threatening conditions? Private security guards work under difficult conditions, and are paid as little as R2000 per month, while they sacrifice their lives to protect the lives of mostly white people and communities. Construction workers risk their lives and health building bridges, skyscrapers, tunnels, dams, houses, and many other critical infrastructures that form the backbone of our nation yet they are not afforded formal employment. Rather they are paid in cash with no certainty that they will have that job tomorrow. Many other workers have bigger problems because they are employed in jobs that do not pay a living wage, and end up with debts, get blacklisted and are even killed by aMashonisa for money they cannot pay back.

Mineworkers, in recognition of the important contribution they make to the economy, should be paid a minimum of R12 500 and provided with proper human settlement spaces with proper sanitation and schools. Farm workers, private security guards, construction workers and public servants should be paid decent salaries and given proper services so that they can live a life with dignity.

By 2011, less than 5% of South Africa’s land had been redistributed. The indications are that, by 2014, we will still not have exceeded 5% land redistribution, 20 years after democracy. If this trend keeps pace at a 5% transfer every 20 years, it means we would have redistributed only 25% of the land in 100 years. In other words, in 100 years’ time, the inequalities between black people and white people will still remain, and this will automatically lead to continued racism and economic subjugation of blacks by white people.

This generation of Economic Freedom Fighters will never agree to this because in 100 years we will no longer be alive but our children and grandchildren will say we sold out. They will still be living under white economic domination. The struggle for land reform and the transfer of land are long overdue and should be fast-tracked to avoid the conflicts that characterise many post-independence African states, nations and countries. We refuse to continue living as though we are in a colony.

The only solution available to us now is expropriation without compensation. We carry an obligation to do this as we must use every means at our disposal to take back our land. We cannot continue to function as though we are under colonial domination. We are not immediately considering a violent or military overthrow of government, a direction which often provides the best possible route to a revolutionary reconstitution of society. We will, however, not agree to the violent suppression of our democratic right to offer the people of South Africa a real alternative.

We need to do away with tenders and contracts that are non-essential. This will obviously require an increased capacity and a strong, corruption-free and effective state and public service. For a successful developmental state, an inspired, skilled, and well-compensated public service is required. The state should also build internal capacity to construct and maintain infrastructure such as roads, railways, dams, etc. and basic services such as schools, houses, hospitals and recreational facilities. The state’s dependence on tenders has massive political implications and often reduces the quality of work provided because of corruption and corruptibility of the whole tendering system.

South Africa should not merely be the gateway to the African economy for developed and developing economies; it should itself play a leading role in investing in the African continent.

We must take up the struggles of all immigrants in South Africa, legal or not. The manner in which immigrants from Africa are treated by the police, government and our communities is unacceptable and undesirable. Many of these immigrants are denied medical care, and are deeply discriminated against, even by the police. They can be refused basic human services, and even refused burial rights in our cemeteries. We need to take a firm stance on the protection of the rights of immigrants. Certain basic rights cannot be denied to any human being who is in South Africa, whether they are in possession of required official documentation or not.

All these aspirations will require a disciplined, dedicated, determined, focused, fearless, and forward-looking generation of cadres who are committed to the economic emancipation of South Africa and the African continent. It will not be an easy route to be activists and cadres of EFF because those with political power will do everything in their power to isolate, bastardise, banish, retrench, persecute, politically prosecute, tarnish and even kill Economic Freedom Fighters. If these people can kill their own members because of tenders and the control of state resources, there is a real possibility that they will kill to destroy a true democratic force such as EFF, as this threatens their ill-gotten wealth and their prized access to resources.

We are not afraid, and our unity, fearlessness, and dedication should inspire the whole generation to fight for what rightfully belongs to all South Africans. The people must share in South Africa’s wealth. We need to be organised, and we need to be disciplined.

Our mission as EFF is to now speak to each and every person in South Africa, every citizen, every voter, including our children, grandparents, parents, relatives, neighbours, fellow churchgoers, workers, street sweepers, and speak ourselves every day about Economic Freedom Fighters, a giant movement that should and will emancipate South Africa from institutionalised starvation, structural unemployment, political directionlessness and mediocrity, institutionalised corruption, and hopelessness of the youth.

We need to go to every corner of South Africa, village to village, township to township, suburb to suburb, kraal to kraal, city to city, and everywhere where there is human life to speak and preach the message for economic freedom in our lifetime. We need to use all modes of transport to get to where we should preach the message of transport. We will use bicycles, donkey-carts, cars, lorries, trucks, buses, trains, planes, helicopters, ships, boats foot, and all forms of transport, spreading the word for economic emancipation in our lifetime.

In this mission, we are under no illusion that spies, information peddlers, careerists, attention-seekers, and detractors will join us. Our obligation as Economic Freedom Fighters is to convert all these into real fighters for economic freedom in our lifetime. We will not turn away any member who comes to identify with the struggle for economic freedom in our lifetime, and will not force any member to join our movement. We will day after day preach the word for economic freedom in our lifetime, because the emancipation of South Africa will lead to the emancipation of the whole African continent.

The winds of political liberation blew from the North to the South, and the winds of economic emancipation will blow from South to North. This wind will gain momentum in our lifetime and South Africa will be an inspiration to other African countries to reclaim their wealth and their economies from colonial and neo-colonial masters. We are the generation of Economic Freedom Fighters.

When asking the question What is to be done? Vladimir Lenin answered by saying: put an end to the third period. The THIRD PERIOD, in his conjecture, was what he summarised as the period of disunity, dissolution, and vacillation. The EFF has passed the period of disunity, dissolution and vacillation and is making a call to all working class forces to join the struggle and fight for economic freedom. Now is the time for economic freedom!

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Appendix

The current EFF Leadership is as follows:

NAME		ROLE/RESPONSIBILITY
1. Julius Malema		Commander in Chief
2. Mpho Ramakatsa		National Coordinator
3. Floyd Shivambu		Research, Policy and Political Education
4. Mbuyiseni Ndlozi		Communications
5. Leigh-Ann Mathys		Finance and Resource Management
6. Godrich Gardee		Mobilization and Campaigns
7. Sam Tshabalala		Environment and Energy
8. Sipho Mbatha		Economic Development
9. Tseko Mafanya		Education, Science and Technology
10. Andile Mngxitama		Land, Rural Development and Agriculture
11. Fana Mokoena		Arts, Culture and Heritage
12. Pebane Moteka		Organising
13. Mandisa Makhesini		Gender
14. Hlayiseka Chewane		Professionals
15. Hlengiwe Hlophe		Social Development
16. Pumza Ntobonuwana		Youth Development
17. Harris Watson		Safety and Security
18. Leentjie Phillips		Sports and Recreation
19. Tebogo Mokwele		Infrastructure
20. Natasha Louw		Mining and Mineral Resources
21. Marshall Dlamini		Fundraising
22. Dali Mpofu		Justice and Special Projects
23. Sam Matiasse		Health
24. Magdalene Moonsamy		International Relations and Solidarity
25. Collen Sedibe		Convenor Mpumalanga
26. Ayanda Tshabalala		Coordinator Mpumalanga
27. Mgcini Tshwaku		Convenor Gauteng
28. Omphile Maotwe		Coordinator Gauteng
29. Themba Wele		Convenor Eastern Cape
30. Siyabulela Peter		Coordinator Eastern Cape
31. Willy Tshabalala		Convenor Free State
32. M.S. Moletsane		Coordinator Free State
33. Michael Mathebe		Convenor Limpopo
34. Jossay Buthane		Coordinator Limpopo
35. Aubrey Baartman		Convenor Northern Cape
36. Mmabatho Mokause		Coordinator Northern Cape
37. Vuzi Khoza		Convenor KwaZulu-Natal
38. Thembi Msane		Coordinator KwaZulu-Natal
39. Nazier Paulsen		Convenor Western Cape
40. Veronica Mente		Coordinator Western Cape
41. Alfred Motsi		Convenor North West
42. Papiki Babuile		Coordinator North West