The Congress of South African Trade Unions welcomes the media's coverage of COSATU's response to the ANC Discussion Paper on the Second Transition, which was released on 24 June 2012.
As we said upfront in our response, "Ours is not to quibble over words: ‘Second Transition', ‘Second Phase', ‘Second Decade for the Workers and the Poor', ‘New Phase', etc. One thing though is certain. All these words intend to express an urgent need to radically ‘shift to the left', on to a genuine path towards social emancipation. What concerns us in this input are the ideological underpinnings, the theoretical bases and the class content of these words. We thus maintain the phrase: "Second Transition", purely for purposes of discussion.
We are concerned however that some of the articles in the press, and particularly the headlines, give a misleading impression of the opinions expressed in the federation's response - for example, "Cosatu slams 'second transition'". (iafrica.com), and "Cosatu rejects ANC paper" (Times).
This presents a very one-sided view of the very carefully balanced assessment contained in the document. While the document does indeed make important criticisms of the ANC paper, for instance that, "it exhibits ideological contradictions and misconceptions throughout", this has to be seen in the context of COSATU's assurance that "we welcome this development because with all its conceptual problems and self-contradictions, the Second Transition document realises the tragic failures and blunders that have been committed since the 1994 democratic breakthrough. This opens an opportunity to once and for all completely uproot the ideological basis of these blunders and to position the movement to adequately deal with the legacy of neo-liberalism and Colonialism of a Special Type".
The response is therefore based on a desire to take advantage of the opportunity offered by the paper's publication to discuss the way forward by engaging in a frank, but constructive, debate on how best to accelerate our progress in implementing the national democratic revolution and transforming the lives of the working class and the poor.
It is important to stress this, in the light of the media's false and foolish attempt to present discussion on this discussion paper in terms of the ANC leadership contest, and interpret people's views for or against the paper, as being for or against a particular leader or faction, rather than the paper's actual content.
COSATU's view on the paper has absolutely nothing to do with any leadership contest, but is purely an attempt to debate the political issues and help our ANC allies to find the best programme to take forward our revolution and complete the emancipation of our people.
Statement issued by Patrick Craven, COSATU national spokesperson, June 25 2012
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