Happy scenes in South Africa as President Jacob Zuma addresses a rally to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the African National Congress:
Mr Zuma said the centenary was an emotional and yet very exciting and moving occasion.
The celebration was for "all the people of South Africa who with the support of the continent and the world destroyed colonial oppression and apartheid and are building a free, democratic, non-racial, non-sexist and prosperous South Africa together," he said....
The president told the crowd that the ANC had achieved a 1942 resolution that by its centenary the movement should have one million members. The ANC now has 1,027,389 members, he announced, to cheers from the stadium.
In 2012 the ANC would be taking "urgent and practical steps" to revitalise its grass roots and once again place itself at the forefront of a progressive pace of change, he said.
Progressive? Well, according to some definitions, perhaps. Here's The ANC Youth League's Statement on the passing away of the DPRK chairperson of the National Defence Council and leader of the Korean people Comrade Kim Jong Il:
The ANC Youth League wishes to send its heartfelt condolences on the passing away of the Great leader Comrade Kim Jong Il. As we remember this revolutionary we call upon the Korean people to forge ahead with the struggle to reunify their country, to free it completely of a legacy of Colonialism left to its people by imperialists represented by the United States of America.
May the undying spirit of Comrade Kim Jong Il continue to inspire the Korean people to defend the Songhun, the idea that it is possible for the people of Korea, Asia and the world to live well alongside each other in an egalitarian society, free from poverty, joblessness, hatred of each other and the oppression of one country by another.
As we will be proceeding to lay to rest Comrade Kim Jong Il, we remain vigilant of the problems facing the Workers Party of Korea and the Kim Il Sung socialist youth, this include the threat of imperialist aggression in the Korean peninsula, and the continued misleading propaganda of the Bak puppet regime and Western imperialism, to suggest that the government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is responsible for the destruction and disruption of the Korean Republic.
As revolutionaries we know that the government of Korea republic will destroy itself, and at that point the unity of the Korean people will prevail, under the capable leadership of the Workers Party of Korea and its Youth League the Kim ill sung Socialist youth, and the spirit that is carried in Mount Paektu will rejoice at this victorious moment. We say so because, we know that the creation of the Korean Republic or South Korea is not desired outcome of the people of Korea, but the creation of imperialism, hence its borders are still guarded by the US military. In his words the dearly departed comrade Kim Jong ill “Overall relations between the North and the South have developed in favour of national reconciliation unity and reunification”.
In commemorating this Great Leader we sent warnings to traitors of the people, led by Lee Myung Bak, who deliberately sunk his Cheonoan war ship and blamed it on the government of the Democratic People’s republic of Korea, to desist from an unsustainable offensive against the North of Korea and the Korean peninsula in general. His continued assault on the image of the DPRK in collaboration with the United States will not continue unabated. In this regard we support the just cause of the Korean people to defend themselves, using whatever means at their disposal, to continue struggling for a just and equal world order and to defeat Capitalism in all its facets...
That certainly bodes well for the ANC's future.
Paul Trewhela (via):
Stalinist adulation of the late North Korean dictator, Kim Jong Il, by the National Executive Committee of the ANC Youth League should come as no surprise....
The racist massacre of the amaNdebele in Zimbabwe, carried out by Robert Mugabe's ZANU regime in its "Gukurahundi" programme (to "wash away the chaff") in the 1980s, was performed under the guidance of military training by North Korean instructors.
In its fawning on this regime, the NEC of the ANCYL tells all one needs to know about itself and its programme for South Africa.
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