Inqaba ya basebenzi Number 2 April 1981 - DISA

The unceasing vibrant strength
and unshaken determination of the
black youth movement are unmistakeable
signs, together with the
awe-inspiring black workers' movement,
that the fortress of racialist
domination and unhindered bosses'
terror has begun to crack.
Wrapped in the entire experience
of conquest, the rise and growth of
naked white national and capitalist
dictatorship, the black youth movement
arose with all the scars suffered
by the movement for class and
national liberation.
Black school and student youth,
an uncontrollable and grudging
by-product of capitalist exploitation,
experienced and continue to experience,
together with their parents, a
consistent ruthless policy of intensified
racial baasskap and capitalist
exploitation—both in the racialist
schools and in the bosses' factories,
mines, kitchens, and farms. Since
conquest, this has been their policy.
The process of perfecting a
complete regimentation of black
workers, the system of cheap labour
through influx control, the pass
system and migrant labour—found
their counterpart in the regimentation
of racialist education; all this
In the determined hands of white
bosses' representatives.
Bloody-minded and confident of
their power and violence, symbolised
by the spirit of the platteland in the
police and military, the bosses
transformed the mass of blacks into
cheap labour and preparation for
cheap labour. But this did not meet
without the tradition of struggle
against conquest.
In South Africa, as around the
by Ashraf Fortuin
world, education has always been a
tool serving the interest of the
minority who control the factories,
mines, farms, universities, and who
control the state apparatus.
Initially in the hands of settler
missionaries, education was handed
over to the white South African
ruling class. This white bosses'
dictatorship quickly developed
education to suit the needs of
unobstructed profit-making and
racialist oppression.
At the centre of their system of
superior education for whites and
inferior or no education for blacks,
was rooted, right from the start,
their whole unchanged interest and
continuing intention i.e. to produce
willing black slaves who would not
rise above the ABC of culture and
who would sing the 'praises' of being
exploited day In and day out.
The philosophy of their education,
in black as well as white schools, is to
succeed in producing the master over
servant 'relationship', which in the
factories and mines and on the farms
is openly upheld by the vulgar
domination of the management and
foremen.
Where the black worker can be
fired and forcefully deported to the
reserves, or Imprisoned; the black
student or pupil Is ruthlessly abused,
subjected to corporal punishment,
expelled or Imprisoned.
tit me iaCtor>, uic miitb",
kitchens, and on the farms, the
dictatorship of the bosses is represented
by management, foremen and
forewomen or the miesies who are
supported by the labour bureaux,
the pass office and the unrestricted
power of the police.
The bosses' apartheid state is
represented in the school by the
principal, headteachers and inspectors,
who carry out the instructions of
government policy.
We shall not continue to be the
doormat of conquest at the entrance
of bosses 1 profits!
Erupting in 1973, and subsequently
immensely strengthened
by the victory of the revolutions in
Angola, Mocambique, and
Guinea-Bissau, the black workers of
Natal demonstrated their strength
and announced to the bosses:
'Filurauntu Ufeaadlklza!' ('Man is
dead but his spirit Is alive!*)
These strikes started the decade of
the most brilliant national and class
struggles of the working class and
youth.
Arising from under the bloody
heels of baaskap the workers raised
the battle cry which was taken up
with the greatest exertion of the will
to struggle and sacrifice by the
renewed youth movement in the
Soweto Uprisings of 1976.
Caught between the process of
healing past defeats, uncertain of its
confidence and lacking the strength
of past experience, the youth
movement found the correct path
under a storm of bullets, the
hammer blows of baton charges, and
the brutality of mass imprisonment.
Responding to the call of their
courageous children, the working
class came out in two general strikes,
lasting three days on each occasion,
in which 500 000 to 700 000
workers participated.