SACP

Johannesburg Declaration of the African Conference on Participatory Democracy

August 16, 2008

SACP leader Blade Nzimande addresses the conference.

As comrades and compatriots, gathered in Johannesburg, South Africa, August 14-16, 2008, from all parts of the world, at the African Conference on Participatory Democracy, hosted by the South African Communist Party and the Swedish Left Party under the auspices of the International Left Forum declare the following:.

AFRICAN PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRACY CONFERENCE

14-16 August 2008, Soweto, Johannesburg, South Africa
See http://www.sacp.org.za/ for updates in due course.

1. Conference Details
1.1 Open invitation
1.2 Draft Conference Programme (see SACP web site)
1.3 Conference Themes
1.4 List of Speakers
1.5 List of participants
1.6 Media Accreditation

2. Registration details
2.1 Registration Form
2.2 Registration Fees

3. Call for papers
3.1 Conference Themes
3.2 Submission guidelines

4. Important dates (table omitted)
5. Conference Tour for Guests/Participants
6. Conference Invitation
6.1 Invitation to Exhibit company or organisational materials

7. Conference Gala Dinner
7.1 Invitation to Gala dinner
7.2 List of table hosts and guests

8. PLEDGES AND DONATIONS


1. CONFERENCE DETAILS
1.1 OPEN INVITATION

To: All Interested Organisations in Africa

INVITATION TO THE AFRICAN PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRACY CONFERENCE, 14-16

Click HERE to view a CVET video production of a seminar at the University of the Western Cape on the past, present, and future of Marxism in South Africa, hel

STOP PRESS: Read the memorandum and pledge delivered by the thousands who marched against xenophobia in Johannesburg on May 24, and the statement of the Anti-Privatisation Forum following t

Raising the Red Flag: The International Socialist League and the Communist Party of South Africa 1914-1932
By Sheridan Johns
Mayibuye Books, Bellville, South Africa
1995, 309pp.

Review by Norm Dixon

Mayibuye Books specialise in publishing works relating to South Africa's liberation struggle, most by participants in the movement. Under apartheid many valuable works were suppressed. Now free to publish anything, it may seem strange that Mayibuye would decide to publish a book that began as an unpublished thesis by an obscure US academic 30 years ago. Strange or not, it is a decision to be welcomed.

On April 10, 1993, South African Communist Party (SACP) leader Chris Hani was asassinated by right-wing extremists hoping to derail South Africa's transtion to democratic rule. On the 15th anniversary of his death, Links reproduces a speech by socialist and African National Congress (ANC) veteran Pallo Jordan delivered to mark the 10th anniversary of the assassination.

***

By Dr Pallo Jordan

Allow me first to thank the leadership of the SACP and the central executive committee of Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) for inviting me to deliver this inaugural Chris Hani Memorial Lecture. I consider it a great honour to have been chosen for this task because Comrade Chris was a close and very dear friend of mine.

By Blade Nzimande

February 20, 2008 -- Tributes are not meant only for the departed, but are also befitting to living revolutionary legends who have served the cause of humanity with distinction, like Cde Fidel Castro Ruz, First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba! Cde Fidel, as he is affectionately known in Cuba and throughout the progressive and socialist world, was until earlier this week, the President of the Socialist Republic of Cuba and Commander of the Armed Forces of the Cuban Revolution.

By Patrick Bond
[The following is the introduction to ``Transcending two economies – renewed debates in South African political economy'', a special issue of Africanus, Journal of Development Studies (Vol. 37 No. 2 2007, ISSN 0304-615x). It is republished with permission.The full issue is available for free download at http://www.nu.ac.za/ccs/files/africanus_1.pdf ]

By Patrick Bond
December 21, 2007 – Congratulations are due Jacob Zuma – apparently far more Machiavellian than even his arch-opponent since 2005, Thabo Mbeki – and the tireless band of warriors from the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), SA Communist Party (SACP) and African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) who kept his political life support on when everyone else declared him dead.

The SACP and COSATU have been fiddling with the same strategic and political choice for over 15 years now.

• Setting the boundaries
• Moving into another GEAR
• The heavy hand of enforced unity
• 'Managing contradictions'

The device by which content is replaced by form and ideas by phrases has produced a host of declamatory priests … whose last offshoots had of course to lead to democracy. Karl Marx[1]