Comrade Vice President, the chairperson of the session;
Acting General Secretary;
National Working Committee members;
The National Executive Committee; 
Revolutionary Alliance leaders;
The Mass Democratic movement Organisations;
Delegates from Branches & Regions;
Invited Guests and special guests;
Service Providers;
Staff Members;
Comrades and Friends;

1. Introduction

SADTU is now nineteen years old and next year, as we approach our congress, SADTU will be twenty years of age. Given the age of the organisation of workers, workers of the mind, the intelligentsia, one of the biggest union within the federation, the biggest union in teaching fraternity, a supposedly powerful union of our destiny, courage and vision, a union of learned workers. Few fundamental questions should be posed and be responded to by calm, reasonable, resolute men and women with clarity of mind. If we are about to conclude two decades and we are in a gathering of more representation than all other gatherings other than a congress, what questions do we pose to ourselves and in what manner are we expected to respond to such questions.  
We are gathered here this year as we have done last year, but today is this year and last time was yesteryear, ten days before COSATU congress. Definitely many things have changed, the form is different, however,the content remains the same. This then might suggest a different approach, strategy and tactics in achieving our goals.

On behalf of the National Executive Committee, the national general council and the entire SADTU membership - let me take this opportunity to congratulate all the newly elected Site committees, Branch Executive members, Regional Executive Members and some provincial working committees of our organisation. It is also important to congratulate all of you and the entire membership, especially the delegates from all provincial general conferences for defending the organisation.  Let me also congratulate all leaders of SADTU recently elected to COSATU leadership and to all alliance organisations and organs of peoples’ power.

Our journey from the last congress to the forthcoming congress has been characterised by three distinct phases, one of defending SADTU, COSATU, SACP, ANC, and broad democratic movement, secondly of defending and deepening 1994 democratic victory and begin a process of occupying the space we have again opened, thirdly, mostly it has been the restructuring of the current administration and negotiations for the improvement of conditions of services. All these phases have informed us about the turbulences, worst tornados and tsunamis on the voyage ahead to our destiny.

2. Political Conjuncture

Given the current socio-economic and political, environment and chemistry confronting our country, the crisis of economic meltdown is the worst ever experienced in life since 1920’s and 1930’s. This is very serious because it is threatening our being, life itself. It is compounding the challenges confronting our revolution. The economic crisis is shedding off jobs at an alarming rate. Unemployment result to poverty, divide families, impact negatively to social stability of households, result to escalation of communicable and killer diseases, affect all walks of life and more severely education and the young people. It impacts negatively on private sector and public sector by reducing revenue of state. The reduction of state revenue result in slowing down of state intervention, affect the implementation of the manifesto, slow down the improvement of conditions of service and conditions of work to workers. It affects more workers and the broader working class. It demands from all sectors of society to compromise and sacrifice some other needs and demands. This NGC has to ponder closely this situation, not from a comfort zone, but from a more realistic level.

As long as our ground is not firm, is not rooted and guided by selfless, revolutionary theory and principles, Polokwane victory is under threat. 2012 might reverse Polokwane to the worst situation ever seen and experienced by the movement in its history. Our refusal to think, to be committed and stop to think about ourselves, only makes the revolutionary shiver. The politician alone cannot bring better life for all people of South Africa, unless people themselves are ready to take their destiny to their own hands. Failure to understand the national agenda by all leaders of all sectors and lack of commitment by both public representatives and public sector workers is disastrous for this country. I must confess, I am not convinced that the problem and challenges are more from the objective environment ,enemy, the current state apparatus, but my analysis informs that majority of leaders have not captured profoundly the essence of their task and then how to lead the masses in that situation. The subjective factor is a cause for concern. The major problem and challenge is not with enemy, but with the revolutionary movement. We included.

The twin evil confronting the contemporary revolution in our country is bureaucracy. This observation is informed by the recent unrest in local state and some tensions of our organisation with the current administration, mostly in provinces, and I want to summarise its manifestation within what was raised by Mao Zedung in the reconstruction program of China.,

Twenty Manifestations of Bureaucracy

1.  At the highest level there is very little knowledge; they do not understand the opinion of the masses; they do not investigate and study; they do not grasp specific policies; they do not conduct political and ideological work; they are divorced from reality, from the masses, and from the leadership of the organisation; they always issue orders, and the orders are usually wrong, they certainly mislead the country and the people; at the least they obstruct the consistent adherence to the organisational line and policies; and they cannot meet with the people.

2.  They are conceited, complacent, and they aimlessly discuss politics. They do not grasp their work, they are subjective and one-sided; they are careless; they do not listen to people; they are truculent and arbitrary; they force orders; they do not care about reality; they maintain blind control. This is authoritarian bureaucracy.

3.  Their bureaucratic attitude is immense; they cannot have any direction; they are egoistic; they beat their gongs to blaze the way; they cause people to become afraid just by looking at them; they repeatedly hurl all kinds of abuse at people; their work style is crude; they do not treat people equally. This is the bureaucracy of the overlords.

4.  They do not understand politics; they do not do their work; they push things off onto others; they do not meet their responsibilities; they haggle; they put things off; they are insensitive; they lose their alertness. This is the irresponsible bureaucracy. [OSD]

5.  Government offices grow bigger and bigger; things are more confused; there are more people than there are jobs; they go around in circles; they quarrel and bicker; people are disinclined to do extra things; they do not fulfil their specific duties. This is the bureaucracy of government offices.

6.  They seek pleasure and fear hardships; they engage in back door deals; one person becomes an official and the entire family benefits; one person reaches nirvana and his entire close associates rise up to heaven; there are parties and gifts are presented. . . This is the bureaucracy for the exceptional.

7.  They are egotistical; they satisfy private ends by public means; there is embezzlement and speculation; the more they devour, the more they want; and they never step back or give in. This is egotistical bureaucracy.

8.  They fight among themselves for power and money; they extend their hands into the organisation; they want fame and fortune; they want positions and, if they do not get them, they are not satisfied; they choose to be fat and to be lean; they pay a great deal of attention to wages; they are cosy when it comes to their comrades but they care nothing about the masses. This is the bureaucracy that is fighting for power and money.

9.  A plural leadership cannot be harmoniously united; they exert themselves in many directions, and their work is in a state of chaos; they try to crowd each other out; the top is divorced from the bottom and there is no centralization, nor is there any democracy. This is the disunited bureaucracy.

10.  There is no organization; they employ personal friends; they engage in factionalism; they maintain feudal relationships; they form cliques to further their own private interest; they protect each other, the individual stands above everything else; these petty officials harm the masses. This is sectarian bureaucracy.

11.  Their revolutionary will is weak; their politics has degenerated and changed its character; they act as if they are highly qualified; they put on official airs; they do not exercise their minds or their hands. They eat their fill every day; they easily avoid hard work; they call a doctor when they are not sick; they go on excursions to the mountains and to the seashore; they do things superficially; they worry about their individual interests, but they do not worry whatsoever about the national interest. This is degenerate bureaucracy.

12.  They promote erroneous tendencies and a spirit of reaction; they connive with bad persons and tolerate bad situations; they engage in villainy and transgress the law; they engage in speculation; they are a threat to the organisation and the state; they suppress democracy; they fight and take revenge, they violate laws and regulations; they protect the bad; they do not differentiate between the enemy and ourselves. This is the bureaucracy of erroneous tendencies and reaction. Linked to this challenge is a struggle for power and resources by comrades, this is an enemy number one which will divide and destroy our organisation and all structures constituting the movement, if not attended to. This NGC should attend to this, by firstly dealing with such a demon in the organisation and all those who are public sector workers and public representatives who have business interests.
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But during these challenging times and moments, revolutionaries should not despair, nor deter from their historic mission, NDR remains our route to better life for all.

Through all of these problems and challenges, working class will only suffer setbacks and eventual move forward; hence in Polokwane we have relatively gained our space:
 The space to pursue our revolution has been opened;
 The alliance is relatively united and is being focused, however with problems in lowest structures;
 Resolutions taken were a shift to the working class;
 The money Bill and related matters have been passed to law;
 Education and health are now priorities of the ANC for the first time since 1994.

However, these victories we have scored are temporal if we are unable to understand who we are, our history, our enemy, our allies, our historic mission and deepen our understanding, practice and adherence to the principle of Democratic Centralism, a fundamental principle of uniting the working class and ensure cohesion of our organisation and the entire working class as well as great goals and tasks facing us.
Confronting the revolution is not new, it has confronted all revolutions and the advantage of us who are the last to get space should take lessons. Many commands, different programmes, different destinies, shooting randomly in different directions are dangerous to the cause.
Confronting our revolution is not the strength of the objective situation, but the weakness of the subjective factor which is impeding the revolutionary situation. The other evil twin of our contemporary revolution is - liberalism.

COMBATING LIBERALISM

Let me again visit Mao Zedung, the leader of Chinese revolution:
“We stand for active ideological struggle because it is a weapon for ensuring unity within the organisation and the revolutionary movement, in the interest of our revolution. A revolutionary organisation without revolutionary theory is like a soldier without weapons, strategy and tactics, vision with no mission, a priest without knowledge of Jesus and God. Every revolutionary should take up this weapon.
But liberalism rejects ideological struggle and stands for unprincipled peace, thus giving rise to a decadent, Philistine attitude and bringing about political degeneration in certain units and individuals in the organisation and revolutionary movement as a whole.
Liberalism manifests itself in various ways.
1. To let things slide for the sake of peace and friendship when a person has clearly gone wrong and refrain from principled argument because he is an old acquaintance, a fellow townsman, a schoolmate, a close friend, a loved one,  an old colleague or old subordinate. Or touch on the matter lightly instead of going through it thoroughly, so as to keep on good terms. The result is that both the individual and the organization are harmed. This is one type of liberalism.
2. To indulge in irresponsible criticism in private instead of actively putting forward one’s suggestions to the organization. To say nothing to people to their faces but to gossip behind their backs, or to say nothing at a meeting but gossip afterwards. To show no regard at all for the principles of collective life but to follow one’s own inclination. This is the second type.
3. To let things drift if they do not affect one personally, to say as little as possible while knowing perfectly well what is wrong, to be worldly wise and play safe and seek only to avoid blame.
4. Not to obey orders but to give pride of place to one’s opinion. To demand special consideration from the organization but to reject its discipline.
5. To indulge in personal attacks, quarrels vent personal spite or seek revenge instead of entering into an argument and struggling against incorrect views for the sake of unity or progress or getting the work done properly.
6. To hear incorrect views without rebutting them and even to hear counter-revolutionary remarks without reporting them, but instead to take them calmly as if nothing had happened.
7. To be among the masses and fail to conduct propaganda and agitation or speak at meetings or conduct investigation and inquiries among them, and instead to be indifferent to them and show no concern for their wellbeing, forgetting that one is a revolutionary and behaving as if one were an ordinary non-progressive person.
8. To see someone harming the interest of the masses and yet not feeling indignant, or dissuaded or stop him or reason with him, but to allow him to continue.
9. To work half hearted without a definite plan or direction; to work perfunctorily and muddle along –“So long as one remains a monk, one goes on tolling the bell.”
10. To regard oneself as having rendered great service to the revolution, to pride oneself on being a veteran, to disdain minor assignments while being quite unequal to major tasks, to be slipshod in work and slack in study.
11. To be aware of one’s own mistakes and yet make no attempt to correct them, taking a liberal attitude towards oneself.
All are manifestation of liberalism.
• Liberalism is extremely harmful in a revolutionary collective. It is a corrosive which eats away unity, undermines cohesion, causes apathy and creates dissension. It robs the revolutionary ranks of coherent organization and strict discipline, prevents policies from being carried through and alienates the organization from the masses which the organisation leads. It is an extremely bad tendency.
• Liberalism stems from petty –bourgeois selfishness, it places personal interest first and the interest of the revolution second, and gives rise to ideological, political and organizational liberalism.
• People, who are liberals, look upon the principles of humanity as abstract dogma. They approve of human values, but are not prepared to practice them in full. They are not prepared to replace their liberalism by human attitude. These people have their human values, but they have their liberalism as well, they talk of progressive positions but practice liberalism, they apply progressive views to others but liberalism to themselves. They keep both kinds of goods in stock and find a use for each. This is how the minds of certain people work.
• Liberalism is a manifestation of opportunism and conflicts fundamentally with our struggle. It is negative and objectively has the effect of helping the enemy,that is why the enemy welcomes its preservation in our midst. Such being its nature, there should be no place for it in the ranks of the revolution.
• We must use revolutionary theory, which is positive in spirit, to overcome liberalism, which is negative. A revolutionary  should have largeness of mind and he should be staunch and active, looking upon the interests of the revolution as his very life and subordinating his personal interests to those of the revolution, always and everywhere he should adhere to principles and wage a tireless struggle against all incorrect ideas and actions, so as to consolidate the collective life of the organisation and strengthen the ties between the organisation and the masses,  he should be more concerned about the organisation and the masses than about any private person, and more concerned about others than about himself. Only thus can he be considered a revolutionary.
• All loyal, honest, active, and upright revolutionaries must unite to oppose the liberal tendencies shown by certain people among us, and set them on the right path. This is one of the tasks on our ideological front.

3. PROGRAMME OF ACTION – WAY-FORWARD

Having diagnosed the situation confronting our organisation, our sector, education, situation of our country in socio-economic and political, challenges confronting our federation and the revolutionary alliance as a whole, decisions and interventions by the alliance, pragmatic and aggressive actions must be taken by all of us in defence of our revolution and in the advancement of our historic mission, the following should be done by all structures and all SADTU members:

3.1 BUILDING THE ORGANISATION

SADTU was established during apartheid times when the obstacles for transformation were racism, sexism, tribalism and overall capitalism and given the democratic break through, renewal becomes critical to ensure that SADTU delivers to her constituency and transform society through quality public education. Many issues should be pondered by this NGC including the following:

 Improve the internal democracy and participation, mandate and accountability and worker control;
 All of us be ambassadors of making SADTU to be central in education, be first in service delivery, strive for unity of all workers in education system and fight for a truly non-racial, non sexist, just and democratic system of education in a really free and democratic South Africa. When we think now we should begin with the end, think of a win situation for us as teachers as a whole and society(win/ win situation, if we are not proactive, things will be done for us ; 2015/2020 vision)
 The agenda for all education related institution should be defined, it can’t be work as usual, (ELRC, SACE PSCBC, ETDP SETA, etc); our performance to these institutions should be subjected to serious scrutiny by this NGC.
 A clear practical resolution should be taken on violence in schools, it is becoming unsafe to be in our schools;
 The union should focus on its unity and cohesion as a basis to contribute to unity in other formations. It should be bold enough to confront areas of differences within itself and be able to identify causes of such differences and have courage to confront them.  No one among us is an enemy, there might just be those who have demons of the enemy, but they too require our assistance to crush demons out of themselves. I am certain that unity and cohesion will be reported to the forthcoming congress as having been attained.
 Improve gender representative and equality, which is also informed by COSATU 2015 plan, but this cannot be achieved by a force  which lack cohesion, vision and lack radical mission and leadership and on this matter I have a sense that those who are suppose to lead this struggle for the revolution and for all of us lack focus and determination, but a word of caution, sexism is equally an enemy like feminism;
 Improve effectiveness of administration and deal with some elements of corruption in the organisation;
 Ensure optimal utilization of human and material resources, the current secondment is utilised to its maximum;
 Members must be serviced and declare 2010 as a year for membership service and benefit.
 Build capacity politically and otherwise;
 Improve communication;
 Recruit all workers in the department of education and higher education sector;
 Be aggressive in fighting for improvement of economic status of teachers in particular, FET, ABET,ECD, private schools and all other workers, this NGC should take a clear pragmatic program on how to expedite the implementation of OSD and more radical approach on dealing with issues confronting FET, ABET, ECG sectors;
 Mobilisation of resources be improved including the increase of subscription;
 Accountability on how resources are used by all structures;
 Review the union vision and mission to suit new conditions and informed by our resolve of improving the  social-economic status of teachers and to socialism;
 Renew our commitment to teach children of the working class in defence of the revolution and our profession;
 Take a campaign of an ideal school as a program of taking the struggle for education to state and society;
 The NGC should also decide on how to deal with the formation of a principals association supported by the state, perhaps a new thinking should emerge to engage this formation, by focusing on school management and leadership and focus it to professional development on management of schools, not labour issues;
 Teacher development summit resolutions should be implemented;
 Improve the treatment and condition of services of SADTU staff;
 Swell the ranks of South African Communist Party , the van – guard of the working class, the only political insurance of our class as an approach of swelling the ranks of the ANC with conscious and sharp weapons, but also an audit should be taken to evaluate our resolve and to implement these decisions.
 
3.2 DEFENDING THE REVOLUTION
Revolution is not only defended in board rooms, but by going to the masses and informing them what is confronting them.
Revolution should be defended:

 All of us must go to our sites and inform teachers, SADTU members and learners in assemblies , the historic mission of the ANC revolutionary alliance and  the importance of defending the movement between now and local government election and beyond;
 Inform them of resolutions we are taking to improve their lives for better;
 Explain to them how to identify enemies of our revolution and further inform them who are the enemies of our revolution now in South Africa, the continent and the world;
 Recruit learners to form COSAS and all those who are not members of SADTU;
 Establish an alliance with COSAS and SASCO with a clear programme in defending the revolution and advancing it;
 Take complaints and concerns from all our members in sites, branches, regions, province and all our structures, but also respond humbly to all of them;
 Branches, regions, provinces should call all ex leaders of the organisation to form part of the programme;
 All  members, in particular leaders to be part of ANC, SACP branches, and COSATU locals joining us in the service of our people in defence of the revolution;
 All structures to prepare their budgets for this campaign;
 Convene imbizo’s in all structures;
 Convene political education on the following items: who we are, what is our enemy, who are our allies, what our historic mission is and how to attain our victory;
 Be humble and be disciplined;
 Be an example in doing our work of teaching children of the working class (using that as a mobilising tool);
 We should be in control of everything in our lives, institutions, communities, etc;
 Establish all organs of people’s power and be in control;
 All of SADTU  members must go to all religious groupings and churches in defence of the revolution for the will of God on earth preparing the life to come;
 Un-musk all counter revolutionaries and ensure that they are isolated from the people;
 Strengthen the practice of democratic centralism;
 Go to the masses of our people, door to door informing them and explaining to all of them their sustainable future of better life for all and generations to come, depends on the defence of the African National Congress and its allies.
 Teach all children the importance of building this country, citizen and patriotism;

3.3 Transform society through quality public education
We should accept as a matter of fact that no transformation of society will happen, if education is not transformed and if SADTU as the revolutionary union of teachers is not taking a lead. All resolutions of the alliance cannot succeed if education is not central, knowledge is power. SADTU must be central in education both formal and informal. In education the following should take place with immediate effect:

 We must define an ideal school and take stock in each and every school of what is lacking to have an ideal school. SADTU in branches should fight for ideal schools in its campaigns of quality public education;
 Be involved in rural integrated economic development;
 Adopt the Free State model of dealing with Farm schools, that of mobilising all farm learners to public boarding schools;
 Mobilise parents and the entire society behind education;
 Sites to ensure that all our members are doing their work as a way of improving our image and responding to our resolve of being revolutionaries in education;
 All schools in 2010 be involved in sports and cultural activities;
 Teacher development be high on our agenda, because without well trained and learned teachers, education is dead; ( teachers matters)
 SADTU to take interest and be central in all activities taking place in the management of education(budget, Organograms, and auxiliary services) to ensure that resources are not used for issues which are not a priority;
 Take up the fight in a more pragmatic manner on post provisioning norms for all personnel needed in education and the issue of temporary teachers;
 Review curriculum to ensure that it responds to social and economic development of our country;
 Establish education local forums;
 Establish association of governing councils from districts, provinces and national as a matter of urgency;
 Ensure that school governing bodies and leaner representatives councils are effective in defence of democratic gains and advancement of the revolution;
 Take up the campaign on free compulsory quality public education for all, from  grade R to university;

4.  Leadership

This NGC has a responsibility to conduct by-elections to fill vacant positions and subsequent positions which might be created. I would of course appeal that this matter be handled with the care it deserves, it would also be good if the product is more organisational having involved the organisation structures with little interference, it would be good that such views are not imported, it would be good and wonderful if such a product has considered our task at hand, our enemy, our historic mission, It would be good if this aspect is not delegated to the ballot box, but is truly a product of delegates. I only wish for the best. Cardinal for the organisation now and in future is unity and stability hence this process should be void of any character assassination and factionalism. This aspect should be informed by the current conjuncture and kind of leadership needed. Leaders who understand the organisation, committed to the revolution, selfless leaders, who hate gossip, leaders who are able to work with people, respect views of others, devoid of factions and who can combat all evils and demons devilling our organisations and the revolution itself.

5. Conclusion

We have then realised that the challenges confronting mankind in our country and worldwide cannot be resolved at the same level they were created, a more committed conscious cadre, a new person is needed for us to real rise to our position of a motive force, this position is not imposed or just claimed, but is won through the struggle. This is not an easy task, nor a task of ordinary conviction and commitment; it is a task of revolutionaries in the true sense of the word
Now let me say as I move to my closure of opening, that we’ve got to give ourselves to this revolution until the end. Nothing would be more tragic than to stop at this point.

If all the issues raised by revolutionary movement, by all of us, by the secretariat report and by you delegates through your interaction in commissions and ultimately in plenary of this NGC are done, you would have Empowered educators, positioned SADTU for people’s education and working class power. We must as a matter of urgency from this NGC crush all counter revolutionaries, with no mercy and deal with our class enemy – capitalism, with its manifestations. Combat liberalism and reactionary bureaucracy. If all is done, you all, your families, generations to come and all our people will be rewarded by a sustainable better life for all.  “There is no better cause, so noble, than the cause of struggling for the working class”.(Che  Guevara).  In dealing with these challenges , tomorrow is too late. You are all welcome and I declare this NGC open.
Amandla!!!!