A TALK DELIVERED BY THE PRESIDENT OF AZAPO, CDE MOSIBUDI MANGENA, AT THE EXTRAORDINARY CONGRESS OF AZAYO HELD AT THE SOCIAL CENTRE IN GALESHEWE, NOTHERN CAPE: 28 SEPTEMBER 2002

The National Chairperson of AZAPO, Cde Zithulele Cindi, The National Executive Committee of AZAYO and Congress Delegates.

A special congress is never called out of the blue. Organisations and their members are generally very busy to convene a congress just for the sake of fun. Organising a congress costs an arm and a leg. Your special congress is no exception. This was evident in the petition submitted by your provincial structures at the 16^th Biennial Congress of AZAPO. It is encouraging finding an organisation of young people having the forthrightness to pause, sit back and confront problems in a democratic and transparent atmosphere. Such vigilance and readiness to act gives us assurance that AZAPO has a guaranteed future with your breed of cadreship.

We must let you know right from the beginning that AZAPO has a direct interest in the outcome of your deliberations at this Congress. The reason for this interest is not difficult to find. More than being an affiliate, AZAYO is a formation of AZAPO. The concept of this formation is not a loose and casual one without any political direction and accountability. On the contrary, AZAYO is a kind of formation that is a component structure of AZAPO. That is why your Constitution does not have an isolated and independent existence. As such, your Constitution constitutes Chapter Three of the AZAPO Constitution. What this means is that any amendments you may make to your Constitution would be subject to ratification by an AZAPO National Congress.

To further illustrate the point that you are a component structure of AZAPO, your congresses are presided upon by the National Chairperson of AZAPO - your Mother Body.

Given this background, we should now be in a position to appreciate that your successes are our successes, and your failures are our failures. That is why we have a direct interest in the resolution of your problems. We spend sleepless nights when we are told you have problems. We are haunted by the thought that an organ that is not functioning well will affect the entire body. We have already alluded to the fact that AZAYO is an organ in the body of AZAPO. We however believe that you have some built-in capacity to stand the test of time.

When we formed AZAYO we had the foresight to guarantee your organisational autonomy and independence. We gave you room to embrace and freely express the basic tenets of the Black Consciousness philosophy. It was (and remains) our objective that you become institutionally self-reliant and self-assertive in helping AZAPO and the country to have a better grasp of the plight of the youth and relevant developmental imperatives. We did not form you and desert you later. You have a massive arsenal at your disposal to confront any problem of whatever magnitude. You have a vibrant philosophy. You have a viable ideology. You have a rich legacy. Others elsewhere are not as fortunate as you are.

One of the important values of struggle is truth. When you organise the masses you must organise them on the basis of the truth. Amilcar Cabral considers this a cardinal principle in organising the masses. As a result, he advises us to “tell no lies and claim no easy victories”. The tricky part about this truth is that it is not necessarily obvious and self-evident. This flows from one of the properties of truth, which is that truth is essentially partisan. It may favour us while putting the others in an awkward situation. Those who are not favored by the truth will do everything in their power to conceal and distort our conception of the truth. A few examples might help.

With the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the era of the so-called Cold War, we now have a unipolar world characterised by US unilateralism. As the sole superpower in the world, the US has an aggressive policy of changing regimes that it deems hostile to its interests. They have a huge budget to fund a programme to remove regimes that do not toe the line either by direct military invasion, or sponsor coups and civil wars. Puppet regimes are hastily installed as substitutes. Political commentators have come to conclude that the United Nations seems to play a role of rubber stamping US selfish decisions.

The US attacked Afghanistan under the pretext of wanting to arrest Osama bin Laden whom it accuses for being responsible for the September 11 attack. When the Taliban regime offered to hand over bin Laden to be tried in a neutral criminal court for the purposes of justice, the US turned down the offer conceding that the evidence it had would not stand legal security. The truth is the US was never really interested in the arrest and trial of bin Laden in the first place. They used him as a scapegoat to overthrow the “undesirable” Taliban regime and replace it with a puppet regime to serve US interests in the Middle East. But this truth was never told, because its disclosure would jeopardise US interests.

A current issue is the land reform programme in Zimbabwe. The struggle of the people of Zimbabwe was about land. The compromises of the Lancaster House Agreements postponed the reconquest of the land for ten years. Britain was among those countries that took the responsibility to set up a fund to help the Zimbabwe government to buy back the land from white settlers. Britain has since reneged on this promise with the result that government is expropriating land and returning it to its rightful owners. Not surprisingly, the whole imperialist world is going for President Mugabe’s throat in defense of the interests of the white minority. There is now talk about how Mugabe “rigged the polls”, and that he is a “tyrant” who has stayed in power for too long. So he must be removed, we are told, to help Africa to be on the path of sustainable development. The question is, since when were the imperialists sympathetic to African pain? They were silent and indifferent to the genocide of more than half a million Africans in Rwanda. As we are talking people are dying in Palestine. Children are brought up under conditions of violence and are unable to go to school like other children elsewhere. Meanwhile, Israel is violating one UN resolution after another without the US raising a finger.

The truth is that it is white people and white interests that are affected in Zimbabwe. It is also understandable why the South African white media has made it their business to protect their folks by demonising Mugabe. Bush is the last person to accuse anybody of rigging the polls. The US presidential elections were in dispute and subject to overdrawn legal battles because of similar accusation of poll rigging.

The latest scenario where truth is the casualty is the handling of Iraq by the US. They demanded that Iraq comply with the UN Resolution of allowing the return of UN Arms Inspectors without any conditions. They further accuse Iraq of harbouring weapons of mass destruction. The US threatens to unleash military strikes on Iraq if it does not comply with the UN Resolution. We now know that Iraq has written to Kofi Anan inviting and giving the Arms Inspectors unhindered access to targeted sites. The US is still not happy with the compliance saying it is not “genuine”. On the other hand, it continues with what it calls pre-emptive strikes on Iraq while preparing for the onslaught with or without the United Nations’ sanction.

The truth here is not about the return of the Arms Inspectors, but about the control of oil.

It goes without saying that the primary task of this Congress must be to defend the truth. It is an interesting coincidence that your Extraordinary Congress takes place on the occasion of the 25^th anniversary of the death in detention of the Founding Father of the Black Consciousness Movement, Steve Biko. He was killed for the simple truth he dared to state that this land belongs to black people. And that black people have an historic duty to repossess it and build One Nation in One Azania!

We must at all times use correct methods, strategies and tactics when defending the truth. Otherwise, we might find ourselves at odds with the people. We must resist the temptation to speak above the heads of the masses. We must be humble, speak their language and make sure they understand us. We must always be with the masses whether they are in church, sports or where ever. We must never be ahead or behind the masses. We must be with them.

Every time you see the workers marching and fighting for their rights and you do not see a flag or a single member of AZAPO, then something is wrong with us. When you see the landless poor engaged in actions to reclaim their land, and AZAPO is nowhere in sight, we must know there is definitely something wrong with us. We cannot have forgotten that the repossession of the land is the principal objective of our struggle. AZAPO must initiate these struggles and give direction to the landless poor. When we say AZAPO we also mean AZAYO, and vice versa. This is because AZAPO and AZAYO are one.

Even though we belong to the same Movement, the fact of the matter is that we are individuals with different backgrounds and experiences. Thus we are bound to differ about which methods, tactics and strategies to adopt in dealing with certain situations and challenges. You will not find a better tool to resolve differences and disagreements than dialogue and debate. Debate gives us greater clarity and singularity of purpose. It restores order and keeps us on track. It gives our organisation solidity and balance, while it welds us together into a formidable unity.

We will not get anywhere as an organisation unless we come to internalise that all of us must submit to the will of the majority in democratic decision-making processes. Discipline is the way to go.

Organisations have rules that must be observed. No one must allowed to violate these rules as he or she pleases. We cannot make any concession on discipline if we still want to have a solid organisation. It is arrogant and reactionary to think you are the only one who knows and is right. Remember the saying that two heads are better than one. Amilcar Cabral gives this saying concrete expression where he writes:

A very important aspect of a national struggle is that those who lead the struggle must never confuse what they have in their head with reality. On the contrary, anyone who leads a national liberation struggle must have many things in his head, and move each day (from the starting point of the particular reality of his land, and of the reality of other lands), but he must weigh up and make plans which respect reality and not what he has in his head.

AZAPO is guided in practice, theory and conduct by its twin ideologies of Black Consciousness and Scientific Socialism. Ours is a socialist organisation that must rise and give content to the socialist struggle. AZAPO defined itself socialist right at its inception in 1978, and remains glued on that path by word and deed. When you declare yourself a member of AZAPO and you know that you are exactly that, you do not need anyone to affirm you as such. Similarly, AZAPO does not need anyone to affirm its socialist character. We are what we are. That’s all!

I wish your Congress fruitful deliberations.

I thank you.

28/9/2002.