25 June 2001
The 26th of June marks the 46th anniversary of the adoption of the Freedom Charter by the Congress of the People in Kliptown, Johannesburg.
The South African Communist Party (SACP) believes that the Freedom Charter continues to be a guide in our current struggles to ensure that the people govern and that they share in the country's wealth as the Freedom Charter demanded all those years ago. The essence of the Freedom Charter is the inseparability of political freedom from full economic emancipation and people's power.
The challenge facing South Africa today is to ensure that we use our political freedom to advance economic emancipation and the building of people's power. Already, capitalist globalisation and neo-liberal restructuring of the global and domestic economy have the potential to undermine our political freedom and to postpone our economic emancipation.
The importance of economic emancipation also lies in the fact that as a democratic country, South Africa can never claim its complete sovereignty so long as the economy of our country remains in the hands of global multi-nationals and the white minority, so long as we still witness poverty, unemployment illiteracy, lack of housing and a lack of access to other basic services. Therefore fundamentally changing the ownership of our economy and pursuing economic policies which benefit the majority of our people remain a critical task.
The SACP calls on all South Africans to use Freedom Charter Day to accelerate the struggle for fundamental economic transformation and the building of people's power in favour of poor and working people in our country as the essence of what the Freedom Charter called for.
CONTACT
Mazibuko K. Jara
Department of Media, Information and Publicity South African Communist Party
Tel: 011 339 3621
Fax: 011 339 4244
Cell: 082 922 5716
Email:sacp1@wn.apc.org