During the dream of democracy, millions have lived a new nightmare of unemployment, hunger and despair. That is the contradiction we must confront, writes Zwelinzima Vavi.
South Africa stands on a precipice, and the working class is entitled to say that it saw this coming. Workers warned against neoliberalism, against GEAR, against privatisation, against labour broking, against premature trade liberalisation, against austerity and against the commercialisation of public goods. Workers warned that a democracy that does not transform the material conditions of the majority would one day face a crisis of legitimacy. Our warnings, once dismissed as slogans, are now vindicated as historical fact, vindicated by mass unemployment, hunger and despair.
The National Democratic Revolution was never meant to be merely about changing who occupies the Union Buildings. Workers did not fight simply to change the colour of those who govern. They fought to change the conditions under which they live. The Freedom Charter was a covenant with the oppressed, promising that the people shall govern, that the people shall share in the country's wealth, that the land shall be shared among those who work it, that there shall be work and security, and that all shall be equal before the law.
