Tag: pan africanism

BLACK FIRST LAND FIRST CALLS ON THE VICE CHANCELLOR PROFESSOR L.R.VAN STRADEN OF TUT SOSHANGUVE TO MEET THE DEMANDS OF THE STUDENTS AND WORKERS WITH IMMEDIATE EFFECT

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BLACK FIRST LAND FIRST CALLS ON THE VICE CHANCELLOR PROFESSOR L.R.VAN STRADEN OF TUT SOSHANGUVE TO MEET THE DEMANDS OF THE STUDENTS AND WORKERS WITH IMMEDIATE EFFECT

Prof Lourens R van Straden

Vice Chancellor

Tshwane University of Technology

Tshwane

05/03/2016

Dear Prof van Straden

I write to you mandated by the joint leadership structures of the TUT SRC who are engaged in the struggle for free education and an end to outsourcing in your university. We met last night (Friday, 04 March) up to this morning. We were able to address two mass meetings on Soshanguve campuses of TUT in this period. The leaders of PASMA, SADESMO, EFF and SCO all engaged us with the view of bringing attention to the serious situations students are faced with and the totally unhelpful response from you and the university management. We were shocked to learn that you have suspended the authentic leaders of the students and basically refused to talk to the SRC. We were shocked to learn that you have decided to divide the student leadership by turning SASCO into prefects who represent not the wishes and interests of students, but rather those of management.

Continue reading “BLACK FIRST LAND FIRST CALLS ON THE VICE CHANCELLOR PROFESSOR L.R.VAN STRADEN OF TUT SOSHANGUVE TO MEET THE DEMANDS OF THE STUDENTS AND WORKERS WITH IMMEDIATE EFFECT” →

BLACK FIRST LAND FIRST COMMEMORATES THE BIRTHDAY OF THE FATHER OF PAN-AFRICANISM ROBERT MANGALISO SOBUKWE

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On this day the 05-12 1924 in Azania the God of Africa gave to us a warrior, a leader, a servant of the the African people and that was Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe. Even his name Mangaliso which means a “Miracle” really for Azania, his birth was almost miraculous because Africa was in great need for a leader of his stature. Today we remember not only the man but his service to the realisation of a free Azania, where black people will be able to call their souls their own.

 

As BLF we draw our strength from this giant of Africa, to continue with his vision of a free Azania that truly belongs to its people. Today is a day all black people should use to reflect; organise ourselves and check whether we are still on the path which was charted to us by Sobukwe. BLF recognises that it is due to Sobukwe that we can affirm unequivocally without fear of contradiction, that for any meaningful freedom to be realised it must be for Black people first as we continue to be the most oppressed people in South Africa.

 

BLF knows that Sobukwe cannot be happy where he is when after 21 years of the so called democratic South African rule its people still remain the most poor and landless. We know this because for Sobukwe the land remained until his death the most essential, for he realised that without the people owning their land there can be no freedom, for without the land that nation is doomed.  The PAC’s famous rallying call “Izwe Lethu” which puts the land question at the centre of our peoples struggles attest to why the land question cannot be compromised.

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This fundamental pillar is what led Sobukwe to breakaway from the ANC in 1955 when it adopted the Freedom Charter in Kliptown. Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe was totally against the notion that our land belonged to all who lived in it, meaning even those who colonised us had a rightful claim to our land.

In 1958 Sobukwe said on the adoption of the Freedom Charter:

“according to us the Freedom Charter is an irreconcilable conflict with the 1949 Programme seeing that it claims land no longer for Africans, but is auctioned for sale to all who live in this country. We have come to the parting of ways and we are here and now giving notice that we are disassociating ourselves from the ANC”

Today, on the birth day of the father of Pan-Africanism in occupied Azania BLF wish to reaffirm our commitment of the return of the land to its rightful owners (Africans) without any compensation or compromise. We wish to reaffirm as Sobukwe did before us that we will reject and expose anyone or any organisation that seeks to promote the “sell-out Freedom Charter” to our people as a solution to the return of our stolen land and our long lost freedom.

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The Freedom Charter is not a bible for liberation, it is a program of surrender. It was written by whites to maintain white supremacy and it is a tragedy that black leaders have been coerced by agents of whiteness to promote it as a programme of liberation.

Sobukwe as a leader served, suffered and sacrificed for the realisation of a free Azania. In an age where leaders of political partys in South Africa would not dare do what s/he asks of her/his members, Robert Sobukwe serves as a shining example of true revolutionary leaders that led from the front, instilling the type of leadership that institutionalised the moto “a leader must walk the walk and talk the talk” to engender confidence in the masses. Sobukwe remains one of the most feared revolutionaries in the history of the liberation struggle,  because of his non compromising stance on land, there has been focused efforts to systematically erase his powerful legacy.

We commit ourselves to never sell-out Sobukwe’s dream by deceiving the landless and the oppressed! We know the Freedom Charter is a programme of surrender not revolution! We stand with Sobukwe and Biko in the total rejection of the Freedom Charter!

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We thank our black Gods for Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe.

Azania shall prevail! Izwe Lethu! Sobukwe Lives!

ISSUED BY THE NATIONAL COORDINATING COMMITTEE OF THE BLACK FIRST LAND FIRST MOVEMENT

5 December 2015

Contact Details

Black First Land First Mail: [email protected]­gmail.com

Zanele Lwana

(National Spokesperson)

Cell: +27 79 486 9087 Mail: [email protected]­m

 

Lindsay Maasdorp

(National Spokesperson)

Cell: +27 79 915 2957

Mail: [email protected]­om

A PEOPLE’S MANIFESTO

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We promise the politicians nothing! We demand that they deliver everything! All the political parties have now published their manifestoes; the empty ritual they buy our votes with. We say 17 years of elections without change are enough. Now we make our own manifesto:

We, the people of South Africa, hereby legislate a new law, titled “POLITICIANS AND PUBLIC SERVANTS: USE PUBLIC SERVICES”. This law compels all politicians, from the president to the local councilor, and all public servants, from the Director General to the sweeper and their families to use public utilities: Starting with the following:

  1. Hospitals.
  2. Schools.
  3. Transport.
  4. Housing! (The same standard house given to citizens must be used by all politicians and public servants)
  5. A living wage for all!
  6. Land belong to the people

Our politicians and public servants have neglected public services for far too long because they know they can take their families to the private sector. We say, what’s good for you is good for us. Equality for all, for real!

Our hospitals are falling apart; doctors and nurses are overworked and underpaid. By and large our public hospitals are places of death.  Simply put, no one is safe in our public hospitals. Our leaders, politicians, senior public servants and their families use private hospitals and that is why they don’t care about public hospitals which are used by the poor.

Our public schools are in bad condition, teachers are underpaid and the government is not investing in their training with the result that after 12 years of schooling most children from public schools can’t read, write or count.  This leads to a high unemployment rate amongst the youth who are trapped in hopelessness. Politicians and senior civil servants take their children to private schools.  This explains why public schools are not a priority for them.

Our public transport system is appalling. Every morning and night our people are packed into taxis, buses and trains like sardines. The queues are long and the fares are high. Our leaders, the rich and senior civil servants have big subsidies to get private transport. Some of our ministers can buy cars worth millions with tax payers’ money.

The townships are generally badly serviced. The houses are small and millions are forced to live in shacks. The RDP houses built by our black government are worse than the matchbox houses built during apartheid. Our leaders live in mansions, while the people are forced to live in rat-infested townships.

A living wage, the ANC and DA parties have legislated starvation minimum wages for our people. Farm workers earn a shocking R105 a day. Our government kills workers when they demand a living wage as in Marikana but cabinet ministers and members of parliament give themselves millions in salaries.

Land For 20 years of the ANC has delivered only 8% of land to black. It would take 100s of years to buy back our land.  Why are we buying our land back? We demand that all the land be nationalised without compensation and be equitably redistributed amongst the people.

We hereby commit ourselves to struggle to realize this legislation to hold public representatives and servants accountable to the people!

Together let’s make this law a reality.

This campaign is undertaken in the memory of Andries Tatane who was killed by our government for demanding quality services for all!

Issued by the September National Imbizo (SNI).

 

 

THE SEPTEMBER NATIONAL IMBIZO RESPONDS TO THE CALL FOR OUR PEOPLE TO CELEBRATE AFRICA DAY

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In a continent still plagued by abject poverty, civil wars, diseases and corrupt governments, this Africa Day, we must ask whether there is anything really that Africans can celebrate? All the big imperialist nations continue to loot African resources ultimately rendering our people hopeless. It is worth mentioning that currently 14 African countries still transfer most of their profits to French banks which serves as a form of colonial tax. Moreover, our people are subjected to abuse and death as they flee from their countries and some even from their own continent in pursuit of a better life. In these new lands the African is treated with contempt as the most wretched of the earth fueling all forms of anti black violence including Afrophobia. Africa is cursed with leaders who crack the whip on its own people in service of its old colonial masters.

As the September National Imbizo we say: Africa is not free! We have no reason to celebrate! Slavery is rife and as is currently evident unaccounted for in the USA. We stand with all the revolutionary black people in America fighting for liberation. Colonialism is very much alive in Africa! We commit ourselves to realise a truly liberated Africa.

To end the current carnage, wrongly called xenophobia, we need radical Pan Afrikanism and Black Consciousness! Only then will Blacks/Africans understand that the cause of this madness is neo-colonialism and white supremacy, only then shall we understand that democracy (political freedom without ending colonial land theft) is in service of white supremacy, only then shall we understand that all the borders in Africa today were not put up by us but by those who enslaved and colonised us! What is shocking is how deeply we Africans have internalised what white supremacy created to serve white interests. Each time we call a black person a “foreigner” we are speaking the language of the colonizer. Whites in Europe are creating a single Europe with one identity document and one currency. Here in Africa blacks don’t get it! We are still holding on to the colonial enclaves which don’t even belong to us. SA currently does not belong to black people. More than 80% of the land is owned by about 35 000 white families and trusts. The resolution of the colonial question, which is primarily the land question, is key to stabilising life in Africa. We shall not compromise! We call for land first (all of it), destruction of the colonial borders, and the establishment of a United States of Africa under one economy and one political and military arrangement. We can only do that if we defeat the comprador who currently rule Africa in service of the master. The comprador is too corrupt to end white rule. They cut deals with our oppressors all the time. Our people are victims of hunger and ignorance hence they attack their fellow blacks. Hence Steve Biko correctly said that our people suffer from both material and spiritual want. It is the duty of all revolutionaries to understand Pan Africanism and Black Consciousness and to agitate for real revolution,  not compromises with land thieves and colonizers! The South Africa government is the epitome of anti black neo colonialism as exemplified by “Operation Fiela” and in this regard SNI condemns its actions.

Until the day Africa is not defined by misery, landlessness and destitution there is nothing that any of us can celebrate! On this day referred to as  “Africa Day” SNI directs all revolutionaries to the good counsel of Frantz Fanon in “The Pitfalls of National Consciousness” in his book  “The Wretched of the Earth”: https://www.marxists.org/subject/africa/fanon/pitfalls-national.htm

We Are The One’s We Have Been Waiting For!

ISSUED BY THE SEPTEMBER NATIONAL IMBIZO

25 May 2015