(FinalCall.com) – “Mining, banks, telecommunications, transport, food and so on, especially industries and sectors that are very monopolized, must be nationalized, as a precondition for resolving the property question in South Africa,” the National Union of Metalworkers of SA (NUMSA) said in its latest policy statement.
This comes behind African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) chairperson and premier Cassel Mathale, during his address to the Freedom Day rally in Malamulele Stadium on April 27, endorsing the ANCYL’s call for “greater consensus” on the nationalization of mines in SA. According to the ANCYL website, “He correctly and decisively used the Freedom Day address to dismiss the fallacy that nationalization will lead to capital flight and disinvestment in the South African economy.” In the recent past, ANCYL leader Julius Malema won strong backing from the poor for his calls to nationalize SA’s mines and seize White-owned farmland.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) president, Sidumo Dlamini, also weighed in on nationalism and the importance of restructuring the South African economy.
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In a recent speech delivered at the ANC Centenary Gala Dinner, the head of the two million member strong trade union said, “COSATU agrees with the ANC that we can only overcome these economic challenges if we restructure the economy inherited from our ugly past and end its domination of mining, finance and heavy chemicals. We must end ownership and control of strategic sectors of our economy by a handful of people, be they black, white, foreign or domestic.”
In a statement directed at naysayers on nationalizing South African industries, NUMSA argued it was impossible to defend the argument that SA would suffer an economic boycott if it nationalized its mines. “The truth is the world needs our minerals and they will seek to trade with us, however we redefine the ownership and control question,” said the group, according to reporting published in Times Live.
The metal workers union believes the struggle for nationalization is a class struggle around the redistribution of wealth, eradication of poverty and providing the country’s citizens with decent employment. “Only by placing the commanding heights of the economy in the hands of all the people of South Africa through nationalization of the mines, banks, telecommunications, petrochemicals, water, food … can a truly democratic and free South Africa come into life,” NUMSA said. Large banks and a few companies, in the traditional sectors of mining and energy, account for 80 percent of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. All these companies are White-owned, privately run and increasingly becoming foreign-owned.
(Jehron Muhammad writes from Philadelphia and can be reached at [email protected].)
In the above video, South Africa ANC Youth League’s Julius Sello Malema discusses current youth challenges, wealth distribution, equality, nationalisation, expropriation of land, fair compensation, white monopoly capital, disinvestment, post-1994 expectations, constitution and it’s amendment.
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