Build for a FULL higher education shutdown!
Co-ordinate protests in a national programme of rolling mass action!
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Where is our struggle now?
The ANC government has said that fee increases will be capped at 6%. WE forced them to make this concession by MASS STRUGGLE. But they are trying to bribe us with peanuts. Mantashe has said Blade will NOT lose his job. Nene has said the higher education budget will NOT be increased. Parliament has used cops AGAINST our struggle. They are showing us that this is not our ‘democracy’ it is a democracy for the RICH.
We have a HUGE fight before us!! BUT WE CAN WIN!!
It would cost the government an extra R71bn to provide all 800,000 students with free tuition. This money is there already! R80bn is lost every year through illegal money flows – clampdown on this corruption! Big business has cash piles of R1.35tr – tax the super-rich and the corporations to educate the poor!
The money is there to fight not only for free tuition but ALSO for free accommodation, a transport allowance, a book allowance and cheap high-quality food in our canteens.
To win we must be clear about what we must do next. The march to Union Buildings today is delivering a memorandum of our demands. But the ANC government have already said NO to our demands! Student ‘leaders’ are negotiating with Zuma in Union Buildings – who elected them? Who are they accountable to?
SASCO and COSAS are the youth wings of the ANC. The ANC government are the ones that we are fighting AGAINST. The leaders of these organisations will be under huge pressure to divert our movement into ‘safe channels’. We must speak in the name of our own struggle. The #feesmustfall movement needs its OWN leaders and its OWN organisation. We need a STUDENT-led, STUDENT-controlled, accountable and democratic, national movement to take our struggle forward.
Imagine what this would make possible. When UCT marches on parliament, UP and TUT must march on Union Buildings. Every town and city centre could be brought to a standstill on the same day at the same time.
SYM believes that we must immediately:
- Convene mass campus assemblies to elect #feesmustfall leadership committees accountable to the mass movement alone.
- Build a FULL national shutdown. Mobilise ALL of higher education, including colleges. Make tomorrow a national day-of-action for mobilisation – send delegations to call all institutions out on strike.
- Convene a national assembly of elected and accountable delegates sent by the assemblies before the end of the month – set the date on THIS demo
- A programme of rolling mass action coordinated at national level combining mass marches, pickets, blockades and occupations of strategic targets such as the Higher Education department. Fight until our demands are met.
- Appeal to workers and communities for support. Engage worker and community structures to join us in struggle
Join the Socialist Youth Movement and help us take the movement forward on this struggle programme.