The Unity Movement was established in 1943 after long and hard struggles of the disfranchised oppressed people in South Africa against foreign domination by first the Dutch and then the British ruling classes. The Non-European Unity Movement (NEUM) as it was named was the first National liberation movement to base itself upon several most important principles and policies: (i) That there could be only ONE SOLUTION for all the people in South Africa to bring freedom, justice and peace. Thus the UNITY of the oppressed and exploited who were denied all citizenship rights was a vital necessity.(ii) That the ruling class and all its agents among us had done everything possible to prevent the oppressed from uniting in their struggles. They had used the tactics of divide-and-rule as a major weapon against our struggles. The struggle for UNITY was always to be one important answer to these divide-and-rule tactics.(iii) That the ruling class used the myths of "race" and the "inferiority" of persons of colour, language, "culture" and separate schools, housing areas, hospitals, churches, jobs, etc., etc., to divide people. The Unity Movement declared war on racism, tribalism and all forms of discrimination. It strove to educate and organise the oppressed to UNDERSTAND WHY AND HOW WE were oppressed. It also strove to teach the oppressed that only a united people could win the freedom struggle; the ruling class were always united; as a disunited people we could never win our liberation struggle. (iv) That our democratic rights had been known for centuries. But we must know them and demand ALL of them. Democracy could not exist if people had some democratic rights and lacked others. We had to know this because dishonest political activists used the masses to get privileges (concessions) for themselves while they pretended to struggle on behalf of the masses. There was a minimum we must always demand, but we could and must strive for even more. (v) That the oppressed were robbed of their land and their possessions (mainly livestock); their homes were destroyed. They were driven into labour camps and mission stations after these wars of dispossession. They were forced to work as cheap labour in the mines and on the farms and in the factories and homes of the conquerors. Landlessness was a feature of all colonies conquered by the warring colonial powers. Today these colonial powers form the basis of World Imperialism. This World Imperialism is the main enemy of every oppressed nation with a history of colonial conquest. It is imperialism that paid for and bought over the collaborators who have been in government since April 1994. But now that they are part of government the collaborators are paid out of the taxes they collect from workers and others they now help to oppress. (vi) That the struggle for the land by the combined unified efforts of workers, landless peasants and the rural poor was a vital part of our struggles. Victory here would help to root out unemployment, homes broken up by the migrant labour system, by a lack of education and necessary skills, poor health, starvation and lack of simple things like drinking water and proper sewage. Thus the struggle for the land (point 7 of our programme) and all the other 9 demands belonged together as part of ONE struggle. That in our struggle the interest of the workers, the landless peasantry and the millions of rural poor are our first concern. And that the struggle against foreign domination (that is, against World Imperialism) was part of our struggle for total liberation. In the light of these founding principles and policies it is clear that a "government of National Unity" set up by the de Klerk Government and World Imperialism (that is, the USA, Canada, Britain, Japan and the European Community) cannot bring liberation peace and justice to us. / Abantu bebanye abasoze boyiswe! = Abantu bemunye abasoze behlulwe!
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:rhodes/vital:30481 |
| Date | January 1900 |
| Creators | New Unity Movement |
| Publisher | New Unity Movement |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text, book |
| Format | 69 pages, pdf |
| Rights | New Unity Movement, No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior permission from the publisher |
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