Whilst the negotiations to end apartheid rule were essentially about negotiating peace and democracy, negotiations between NUSAS and SANSCO took place in peace and sought to bring together into one formation these two democratic organizations. The result of all this was the birth of SASCO.
The division in the student movement had occurred in the late 60's when Steve Biko and others walked out of NUSAS to form South African Student Organisation (SASO), the basis for this has been eloquently written about there is no longer a need to recite it here save to say that for more than three long decades the student movement in South Africa despite its anti-apartheid yearnings it remained divided.
This is such that by the mid-80's there three student movements representing three different ideological strands: NUSAS (liberalism), SANSCO (progressive nationalism, with a Marxist flourish) and Azania Student Congress (AZASCO) Pan-Africanism.
Although the Pan Africanists were part of the original split in the student movement in the 1960's, by the time NUSAS and SANSCO came together in 1991, they were not invited to the Party. This was largely due to the politics of the time. NUSAS and SANSCO had thrown themselves into the Congress movement whilst the rest had defined themselves outside this. Of course, this is not to suggest that Pan-Africanism had no influence on the delegates that gathered in September 1991 at Rhodes. This influence can be seen in one of the clauses they inserted in the SASCO constitution of African leadership. Not to be outdone, the Marxists contested for their own space, such that in the same constitution, amongst the principles of the organization working class leadership is placed at the apex.
The ideological character of SASCO was contested from the onset and it is still the case till today. Our commission on ideology is still the most attended in all our Conferences such that other commissions are often left in near neglect. To be fair, these ideological contestations have not left our organization ideologically amorphous, we have in the past 20 years, remained rooted in working class struggles. Without knowledge of Marxism, it is difficult for a cadre to make his mark in SASCO. This is such that one of our former leaders once remarked that although he was not so committed to the struggle for socialism, he knew that in SASCO in order to be taken serious he had to have some knowledge of at least what he calls end-user Marxism.
Marxists have cemented began to cement their ideological dominance over the organization when we took a resolution to use "Marxism-Leninism as a tool of analysis", later this was followed with an NGC resolution that we must be a "Marxist-Leninist student movement, that seeks to ensure that destruction of capitalist relations of production and their replacement with socialism which will take us to communism". Whether or not this resolution will hold sway depends on our National Congress in December. There are a lot of debates around this resolution, including fears that this will shrink the number of students that will join SASCO and thus decrease our influence, this often moves from the notion that students who sprout from working class backgrounds in institutions of higher learning are in the minority, which is markedly not the case.
For that matter our Draft-Strategic Perspective on Transformation (SPOT) simplifies the matter thus: "Although we remain a Marxist-Leninist student movement, we are acutely aware that the aspect of society we mobilize often does not constitute part of a class but is composed of a social stratum in transition. As a result of this, we will continue to mobilize students of different ideological persuasions with the intention of developing Marxist-Leninists out of them, regardless of the class from which they sprout, which we believe are not the only determinants of one's ideology though first they would have to commit some degree of class suicide." This makes it clear that despite our clarity on the kind of society we want, we will mobilize all within the higher education landscape and seek to win them over to our point of view, without forcing them to accept Socialism as a basis for joining.
In some quarters there is a fear that this could result in our organization being turned into a student wing of the Communist Party and thus lose its independence. Our draft SPOT document addresses this too: "We are not and do not intend to be a student wing of the South African Communist Party (SACP).
However, we respect and support the role of the SACP as the revolutionary vanguard of the South African working class and its off-springs, and intend to follow its lead out of South African capitalism. As an organization we intend to swell the ranks of the Party, not only to increase its numbers but to assist in its ideological development and sharpen its capacity to analyze and contest South African capitalism head-on."
SASCO and the Party have shared enough time in the trenches. We, together with the Party and COSATU threw ourselves in the struggle against GEAR and the 1996 class project to the extent that the Class Project saw it necessary to bring Youth League branches into campuses in order to phase out SASCO (a tactic that fell flat on its face). Together with the Party and COSATU, SASCO leaders were in the forefront of the struggle against privatization. Our struggle for free education is also entirely a struggle to ensure access to higher education by poor working class communities whose skills development remains harrowingly backward simply because higher education has remained a preserve for the rich.
We have in the past 20 years produced thousands of leaders for the Party to the extent that more than five SACP Provincial Secretaries are former leaders, some even Presidents of SASCO such as Jacob Mamabolo and Gilbert Kganyago. The YCL has also benefitted immensely from SASCO cadres such as, Buti Manamela, Khaye Nkwanyana, David Masondo, Yershen Pillay, Phindile Kunene and Mawethu Rune, all who have led structures of the YCL with distinction. We are quite convinced that the working class movement will continue to benefit from the ideological precision of SASCO cadres in years to come.
Although we have not made such a significant contribution to the ANC and the ANCYL owing to the nature and character of these organizations, our movement has produced some cadres for the ANC and its YL amongst them are Ishmael Malale, Floyd Shivambu in the league, whilst in the ANC is David Makhura, Zamani Saul etc. We mention these contributions to the liberation movement to underline the strategic role played by the student movement in developing critical thinkers for the MDM. Of course, not all these critical thinkers have remained as critical when they have found themselves particularly in the ANC and its Youth League, this owes to the dynamics of these organizations rather than to the incapacity of our organization to impart ideological development.
In the past 20 years of our existence, our movement recorded a number of achievements in the arena of education transformation, however it has also lost a number of leaders some of who literally died in the line of duty such as Xola Nene, Kgomotso Mogoere, Siphiwe Zuma, Claude Qavane, Wanga Sigila, K K Papiyane, Smiso Nkwanyana, Robert Mathebula etc. Despite the unfortunate passing away of these movements our organization is still going strong.
We have a colorful history, most of which we can be proud of, but like any other organizations we have some skeletons in our cupboard. These include the fact that it is an indictment that our organization in its twenty year history has literally not produced a single female President. This is not to suggest that we are in it for numbers but the fact that we have not produced females that our movement has had confidence in them to the extent that it would give them absolute leadership responsibility is a major lacuna. In the past years, the NUSAS component in the movement has literally been wiped out. It is difficult to explain why our organization no longer attracts white comrades into its ranks in their numbers.
The scourge of corruption which has seeped into the democratic movement has begun to eat away the values of our student movement. To defeat corruption as SASCO we will not waste our time with denying its existence in our structures, particularly through our SRC deployees but we will confront it head-on. Our movement remains relatively weak in white institutions and this is threatening the life of our branches and leaves them incapable to wage relentless students struggles and thus exposes working class students to the whims of intransigent institutional managements.
Despite all these challenges, our organization is still going strong. We refuse to allow the delinquent sub-culture that has crept into the MDM of disrupting meetings, insulting comrades and cooking membership to engulf our student movement. This is the reason why in our National General Council (NGC) we resolved to "combat, isolate, defeat and remove the New Tendency within and outside our organization". This is because our NGC understood the corrosive nature of the delinquent sub-culture the New Tendency embraces. This is simply to ensure our survival.
One thing is for sure, our organization has no choice but to survive the next two decades. It owes it to the struggle of the working class. It owes it to the struggle for socialism. Our student movement needs to survive because it has a responsibility to radicalize the Communist Party and COSATU. It has a responsibility to ensure that these organizations do not shirk their responsibility to the struggle for socialism in exchange for some petty battles in the MDM or to personality cults.
Our organization has no choice but to weather the storms directed at it by those who want a weak student voice in order to secure individuals. Our organization equally has a responsibility to survive the sustained attacks directed at it by Tenderpreneurs through their political vehicles because they seek to accumulate in institutions of higher learning and see our movement as a hindrance to their thirst for money and thus seek to eliminate it. Student Represantative Council (SRC) elections this year will be that litmus test. They will tell us whether our organization can ward off attacks against it by the New Tendency in its shocking alliance on campuses with Convenient Communists.
If we are to go by Joe Slovo's epigram: "Three score years and ten is biblical allotment of human lifespan", then we should relax, we are not about to meet our maker. Alas, the laws of organizational development even those of human development for that matter are not governed by such idealistic notions, but by a whole concatenation of factors. One of those, for an organization is relevance in the arena of struggle. And as we descended towards Rhodes University on September 10, to celebrate out 20th Anniversary, we intended doing just that.
By Lazola Ndamase, General Secretary of SASCO
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