The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) honours the gallant memory of the late comrade and struggle stalwart, Joe Slovo. Today marks 30 years since his untimely passing due to cancer, yet his revolutionary principles remain as relevant as ever.
The family of Joe Slovo knew firsthand the evils of discrimination and oppression, forcing them to flee Lithuania and Europe where pogroms and genocide against Jewish people took the lives of millions. From a young age, cde. Joe was an activist. Shortly after leaving school at the age of 15 and beginning his working life as a dispatch clerk, he joined the National Union of Distributive Workers, helping to organise a strike as a shop steward. By the time he was 16 years old, he joined the Communist Party of South Africa and inspired by the call to defeat fascism, soon volunteered for service in World War Two.
Slovo could have chosen an easier life as a law graduate of the University of the Witwatersrand. He decided to dedicate his life to the liberation of all South Africans. This came at great cost to him and his family, with harassment and brutal detentions, eventual exile, and later the savage assassination of his first wife and mother to his daughters, Ruth First, herself an outstanding liberation icon.
Comrade Slovo only had one request, to be utilised by the liberation movement to which he dedicated every moment of his life, from his time as a young lawyer to utilising his experience as a military veteran to help build Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) the armed wing of the liberation movement; the African National Congress (ANC) and the South African Communist Party (SACP).
His strategic foresight, aversion to corruption and ability to inspire and mobilise millions were recognised and saw his appointment to leading positions across the Alliance, from Chief of Staff of MK to General Secretary and later Chairperson of the SACP, one of the first White Members of the ANC’s NEC, and democratic South Africa’s first Minister for Housing. His indefatigable nature saw him lift the struggle to new heights in all his deployments.
At a time when corruption and criminality have become endemic and key organs of the state broken to enrich a few, when the Freedom Charter’s clarion call to a non-racial and non-sexist South African have been undermined by a crass parasitic political class; the prescient life of cde Slovo, is and must remain a call for all of us to not only applaud his legacy but also to emulate his example.
COSATU is determined to continue to play its role to ensure the hopes of cde. JS for a South Africa free from the scourge of racism, chauvinism and tribalism; liberated from poverty, inequality and exploitation; empowered by a state biased towards the working class, the rural poor and the vulnerable; becomes a lived reality for all, including those still feeling the pain of oppression in Palestine and elsewhere.
We are convinced his life will continue to inspire not only his political homes of the ANC, SACP and COSATU, but in fact millions of ordinary South Africans. We dare not fail in our efforts to honour his and his generation’s selfless sacrifices and to bring to fruition the call for a Better Life for All, including ultimately a society based upon the principles of socialism.
Issued by COSATU
Matthew Parks (Parliamentary Coordinator)
Mobile: 082 785 0687
Email: mat…@cosatu.org.za
