One of the most talked about worldviews or ways of being conscientious of ourselves and the world we live in, is Black consciousness. This is conscious of being born black in South Africa and in the world; conscious of being ourselves created with the same human attributes as all human beings on earth. For religious people we are indeed created in the image of God.

By being born black, we are therefore born in conditions that are a product of the way in which our forefathers lived as well as how they responded to the material circumstances to persue goals of a better society for themselves and their children (meaning us). In this way we all do not choose in advance where we wish to be born, who our parents should be or look like. It is common course that the vast majority of black people were borne and are still been born in existential situations that are far short of being described as capable of sustaining life to its full potential.

The situation in which black people find themselves is worsened by the fact that juts before we entered the new political era, political parties that were at the Kempton Park negotiation conference, agreed and signed for a dispensation that was not capable of transforming society for the betterment of black people. In this way, we inherited a political and economic system with its social consequences. Those who agreed at Kempton Park were too happy and in a hurry to become new managers of a system they did not create. Just like all managers, they are now called upon to make the system work. We should bear in mind that all political and economic systems are created to fulfil certain objectives. A political and economic system that is capitalist in nature cannot all of a sudden change for example, to a socialist one. We all know which political and economic system was signed for at Kempton Park – the capitalist system. AZAPO’s views on the Kempton Park package are well known. For those who may not remember AZAPO’s view; allow me to restate these.

AZAPO rejected the Kempton Park package because looked at in its totality, the package is not capable of transforming our society to a socialist egalitarian one. We should be reminded that the struggle we fought so hard was directed against a racist capitalist system. As we all know the white managed racist capitalist system created institutions, norms and values all with the intention of perpetuating oppression and exploitation. The end product was that black people were the victims. Political and economic power were in the hands of whites. This then meant that the control of economic resources was in white hands; social norms and values were and still are euro-centric. In other words, whites controlled and managed both the political and economic spheres of our country.

When 1994 ushered in the first ever elections for black people, through the signatures attached to the Kempton Park agreement by former liberation movements, (ANC and PAC) as well as those parties and organization that were part and parcel of the old order, we all inherited the capitalist system with its institutions and structures. When the votes were counted; the final results announced; and the African National Congress was declared a winner; a new breed of managers emerged to manage the inherited system. In this way we inherited amongst other things, the army, the police force, and above all, Western type of democracy and all that goes with it. Just like all inheritance, those from whom we inherit do indeed live behind documents that prescribe the nature of inheritance. In the case of the Kempton Park package the vote only earned black people political power and not economic power. During the first democratic election many of these new black managers were so excited about the overwhelming support that the ANC got, and did not realise that whites bargained for economic power.

Comrades you will all agree with me, that the economic base in any country is fundamental to the eradication of poverty and exploitation. It is a fact that whites possess economic power. This being the case, the question to be asked is: what do we do to make sure that this power comes to an end? To accept this state of affairs is to accept the perpetuation of past inequalities - a matter which is not negotiable to AZAPO. For us in AZAPO inequalities of any form are unacceptable. When we deal with inequalities we should make a distinction between legal inequalities that on paper have been removed, and institutional and social inequalities that continue to exist. Comrades apartheid economic inequalities have not been eradicated despite the many progressive laws that have been enacted.

As was stated earlier, we should bear in mind, that whites are presently managers of economic power in South Africa and the ANC manages political power. The economic power base is unlikely to be in black hands for a long time if not forever. We should be aware that economic power, unlike political power cannot change hands by a vote. At the same time, economic power has always been the basis of economic prosperity, and is capable of leading to better living standard for the majority of citizens. This state of affairs will continue unless those who control political power intervene with socialist programmes that are capable of removing economic power from the hands of a few rich individuals. Unfortunately, the ruling party is not prepared to champion socialist programmes, let alone intervention. By refusing to champion socialism; by refusing to abandon, privatization of the only assets we inherited; by continuing to manage a political and economic system whose overall intervention is to make the rich richer and the poor poorer, the ruling party has declared itself an opponent of socialism, and by implication cannot be a partner to AZAPO whose objectives are to restructure and transform society towards socialism.

The painful thing that has ever happen to our country is the formulation of the GEAR development policy by the ruling party. This policy accept the capitalist mode production and privalisation. What this means is, that this policy goes against the fundamentals of AZAPO; it means all those who are managers of the new found political power through various organs of the state are by implication perpetuating the sufferings of our people through the destructive GEAR policy intentions.

This gear policy developed and championed by the ruling party, brought along with it a watered down version of the African Renaissance. We in the Black Consciousness movement cannot accept a situation where in Africa wealth should still resides in the hands of colonialists. The Gear policy promotes capitalism, and globalization.

Allow me now to remind you of what Black consciousness is all about. I am doing this in order to allow you comrades to interrogate what I have started using Black Consciousness as you tool of analysis.

 

1. "Black consciousness is an attitude of mind, a way of life;
2. The basic tenet of Black Consciousness is that the Black man must reject all value systems that seek to make him a foreigner in the country of his birth and reduce his basic human dignity.
3. The black man must build up his own value systems, see himself as self-defined and not defined by others.
4. The concept of Black Conserverness implies the awareness by the black people of the power they wield as a group both economically and politically and hence group cohesion and solidarity are important facets of B.C
5. B.C will always be enhanced by the totality of involvement of the oppressed people, hence the massage of B.C has to be spread to reach all sections of the Black community"

Once a person has chosen to adopt B.C as a tool to interpret what goes on is society; once a person has made B.C a way of life, then it means the person must reject all value systems that makes him/her a foreigner in the land of his/her birth. The GEAR policy of the ruling party aleniates black people from the wealth of their own country; it makes them poorer in the land of their birth.

I now ask all of you to observe a moment of silent and reflect on black people’s existential situation under the present government. Think of michuchus, think of the lack of adequate tarred roads in the townships, think of thatched mud houses in the rural areas, think of the wages that workers earn in factories and other forms of work, think of the present government actions on land inversion, think of all those things in the life of a black person that tend to make him/her inferior and reduce his basic human dignity; think of all the things that presently militates against your advancement towards a decent living, and then say to yourselves, We reject all these things because they stand on our way towards creating a better socialist society.

I shall not have done justice to the topic given to me unless I address the question of "strategic alignments". When the topic was dictated to me it read; "strategic realignment of AZAPO". Those who have been associated with me will know that I sometimes change topics. Like in the past I had to change this one as well because I felt it tend to suggest that AZAPO is already aligned and that it seeks to realign itself.

Be that as it may, AZAPO as far as I can member is the only organization in this country that is prepared to champion the liberation and advancement of black people. On top of this, AZAPO happens to be a socialist organization that wants to transform society into a socialist one.

AZAPO in seeking to align itself, should bear this fundamental issues in mind. In order to answer questions of alignment let AZAPO speak through one of its resolutions. At the fourteenth annual congress of AZAPO held at the Pretoria Technikon delegates passed the following resolution.

 

1. The failure of the present government to fulfil its election promises;
2. And that this failure, in large measure is as a result of the Kempton Park agreements’
3. And further that this has now led to the ever growing groundswell of dissatisfaction and discontent with the government by the working people, the professionals, the students and the youth’
4. Whereas rampant corruption and unaccountability by the government officials and the civil servants is the order of the day’ and
5. The imperialists continue to bolster this government and to play up its so-called "magic image"

Therefore resolves;

 

1. To make common cause with organizations or associations of the working people’
2. To form alliances with the organizations or associations of professionals, the students and the youth’
3. To analyse the various political parties, identify the ones with whom to enter in alliances, and determine the form or forms the alliances should take while at all times preserving the identity and political independence of AZAPO.
4. To formalize and concretise the arrangements for the action towards the coming election with all the BCM formations and supporters.

The situation in which AZAPO finds itself now where the mass media has influenced people’s perceptions to believe that parliament and parliamentary politics are the only forms of struggle left for any self-respecting political party; has brought along reformist thinking within and outside AZAPO. The reformist thinkers are starting to question the validity and relevance of Black consciousness. Side by side with this reformist thinking, a section of our cadreship is gradually developing self-doubt about AZAPO’s capabilities and intentions. More often than not one is often confronted with statements such as: we should not attack and criticize the ruling party; we should only speak about ourselves and our organization.

The problem I have with this kind of reasoning, is that it takes for granted that the ruling party has something fundamental to offer to black people. This outlook is beginning to confront and influence our attitude in relation to the ruling party. Granted, not everything that the ruling party does is wrong; for that matter they are programmes that the ruling party pursues that are consistent with AZAPO’s intentions. But we should not loose sight of the fact that we are AZAPO, an organisation that wants to unseat the president government. It is important at this time of our struggle to make a distinction between those who seek to assimilate our ideas to theirs and those who genuinely believe in the transformation of social relations.

We in the Black consciousness Movement have always insisted that our struggle is a socialist one, that when completed would lead to the redistribution of land and wealth. We should be reminded that not every cadre who was part and parcel of National Liberation Movements has the intention of creating a socialist order in our country. Quite to the contrary, the attainment of a democratic dispensation has merely transferred political power to the pro-capitalist elite. These elites, in order to keep themselves in power, sometimes claim to pursue socialist and egalitarian goals, and yet busy creating firm bases for themselves within the present dispensation with no programmes to move to socialism.

Given this state of affairs AZAPO must develop its own identity distinct from the ruling party and other parties. Our own identity is crucial if we want to unseat the present ruling party.