While EFF Western Cape communications officer, Dr Wandile Kasibe, paints a poignant and melancholic picture of the demolition of Sophiatown in 1958 and of the fate of anti-apartheid activist, William Modisane (The Mercury, September 16), there is little credibility in his claim that the EFF “will restore freedom, pride and dignity.”
Dr Kasibe is rightly outraged that, as millions have discovered, achieving the political kingdom has not brought about any of the material benefits to which the Freedom Charter aspired: “there shall be houses, security and comfort; slums shall be demolished; no-one shall go hungry…”
He rightly denounces the ANC’s avarice and looting “while the majority of our people die in poverty and malnutrition.” Although it probably does not fit his narrative, it should be noted that the plight of the majority of black people under the ANC is actually worse now than it was before 1994.
Be that as it may, Dr Kasibe makes a very relevant point when he states “political freedom without economic freedom is no freedom at all.” Absolutely! The haemorrhaging state of the economy in 1994 was the legacy of the ANC’s promotion of sanctions, disinvestment, violent strikes and social chaos. Unfortunately, since then, economic freedom has become a captive of ANC corruption, socialism and cadre deployment.
In that it is EFF policy to nationalise all land, resources and commercial enterprises, it should occur to Dr Kasibe that such policies will further exacerbate what he calls the “miasma”. Doing more of the same, but in a more ruthless fashion, as the EFF intends, and asserting that it will “restore pride and dignity,” is a no-brainer.
Economic freedom can be achieved only when enterprise is free and unfettered by socialist prescription and ideology. A state-owned and controlled economy, such as existed in the USSR, neither allows nor tolerates free enterprise.
If the EFF wants its name to be meaningful, it should renounce nationalisation, socialism and racial ideology and appreciate, as the preamble of the constitution states, that South Africa belongs to all who live in it and respect those who have worked to build and develop it.
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