Determination to make the ANC succeed

Joyce Moloi-Moropa must have been delighted to hear of Thursday's joint announcement by the African National Congress and the South African Communist Party that there should be "no further personalised public attacks on each other."

The senior leadership of both organisations - ANC President Jacob Zuma and SACP deputy general secretary Jeremy Cronin - indicated that mistakes had been made on both sides.

And Cronin reaffirmed party regret over the booing by some delegates of ANC Youth League secretary Julius Malema at December's special SACP congress.

Moloi-Moropa, as an ANC MP and SACP deputy chairperson has insisted during her current tour of Ireland and Britain on the need to build mutual respect in the progressive movement and in broader society.

As an African working-class woman, she remembers the triple oppression suffered under the yoke of apartheid.

She also appreciates the struggle of her mother to raise six children in Soweto in the 1960s and '70s after her father died when she was four.

"My father was Southern Sotho from the Free State and my mother a Zulu from KwaZulu Natal. They met in Soweto, drawn to the Johannesburg industrial belt to find work.

"Soweto was divided by apartheid into Zulu, Sotho, Shangaan areas etc. We lived in a Sotho area, so, when my dad died, we remained there, but my mother faced discrimination as a Zulu. It was difficult, but we survived."

Moloi-Moropa was just 12 when she took part in the 1976 protest against the introduction of Afrikaans rather than English as the secondary language in African schools.

Police opened fire, killing 13-year-old Hector Peterson and sparking the national uprising by young people, which sounded the resistance clarion and made apartheid unsustainable.

She enrolled in the liberation movement structures at this early age, later becoming the first woman provincial chairperson of the South African Students Congress in Northern Transvaal, now Limpopo, when she studied at the University of the North in Turfloop.

"Gender oppression is still there, as in other countries," she says.

"It is sometimes subtle, but it also emerges in violent ways. Many women are subjected to domestic violence. There are laws against it and measures introduced to monitor the situation, but we are still struggling to deal with gender relations, where we see ourselves as men and women, as partners of equal rank.

"We have levelled the playing field in terms of legislation on 50-50 representation, women and men, at every level of governance, which has caused some problems since it is men who have lost their seats and we don't want it to be seen as women against men but as part of developing society.

"There is no compromise on that and no-one is arguing against that in the ANC, but the numbers do not translate into changing the lives of poor women."

Although South Africa is now a democratic country, Moloi-Moropa believes that the people are still not completely liberated because they don't own the economy.

Many women cannot provide their own livelihood because of economic problems. The government has not managed to redress inequalities and the illiteracy level among women, the majority of the population, remains high.

"The economy is still owned by a few people, most of whom are white," she says.

The previous government, under president Thabo Mbeki, introduced black economic empowerment measures (BEE), which benefited a small black middle stratum of people who were co-opted by big business and have become very rich.

"BEE is too individualistic. We prefer broad-based black economic empowerment to include the whole community," she says.

The phenomenon of "tenderpreneurs," as the SACP calls it, has also raised its ugly head, where parasitic elements use political pull to win tenders and amass great wealth.

Cited in this tendency is the aforementioned Julius Malema, who has attacked the SACP as "yellow communists" and its deputy leader Jeremy Cronin as a "white messiah" for its critique of the Youth League demand to nationalise the mines.

With regard to the booing of Malema, Moloi-Moropa calls this a "terrible situation," for which her party must accept blame and she believes that the party should engage critically with the proposal.

"The Communist Party is pleased to discuss nationalisation, but we would like to choose what to nationalise and it wouldn't be the mines. Most of them are barren and we cannot nationalise something that would not benefit the government.

"Why not the banks or SASOL (South Africa's oil, mining, energy and chemicals conglomerate)?"

Moloi-Moropa is insistent that communists will put forward these policies within the ANC, not shouting from the sidelines.

"Our party has always been critical to the development of ANC. A stronger SACP means a stronger ANC. We must develop cadreship, lead political discussion, conscientise and educate members of the movement and wider society.

"The party must mobilise on the ground to complement the programme that the government is carrying out. All SACP members should be members of the ANC and communists should be seen to be serious.

"We don't want to stand on the sidelines. We want to be part of the implementation process to make the ANC succeed."