Date: 17/08/2004
Source: Ministry of Housing
Title: L Sisulu: National Summit on Land & Housing Coalition of Urban Poor


SPEECH BY LN SISULU, MINISTER OF HOUSING, AT THE NATIONAL SUMMIT ON LAND AND HOUSING COALITION OF THE URBAN POOR, 17 Shaft Education and Conference Centre, Johannesburg, 17 August 2004

Chairperson
Co-ordinator for the Coalition of the urban Poor, and
Members of the Interim Steering Committee
Representatives of the different community based organisations present here
Comrades
Invited Guests
Ladies and Gentlemen:

Given the importance of this gathering and the noble objectives it entails the most appropriate statement to utter from the beginning is perhaps to congratulate all the representatives gathered here, the Interim Steering Community and the Community Organisation Urban Resource Centre, for realising an idea that to some was a far removed reality some few years ago. Not so long ago Chairperson, some who had identified with our national liberation struggle, abandoned hopes that something new and consistent with the traditions developed during the liberation struggle was going to be born out of a liberated South Africa. Premising this belief on scathing criticisms of government policies they wrote boldly and furiously lamenting what they perceived was a U-turn by our liberation movement, the African National Congress, in especially the area of economic policy. For this reason, one of our long-time ally, John S. Saul, was to conclude a paper he wrote in 1994 by firmly articulating the view that:

* 'there does seem to be something all too anti-climatic about what is now likely to emerge from the current transition to democracy in South Africa
In his analyses at the time, he had been concerned about the meaning of democracy for our people in the context where a peaceful transition from apartheid needed to be a carefully negotiated outcome by the liberation movement. In 2000, in a book titled Elite Transition, another ally, Patrick Bond, took up the cudgels further by undertaking an analysis whose primary assumptions are identified in the statement he wrote that:

* 'the near-term future for South African progressive politics relies upon identifying what was actually feasible, which initiatives derailed, when and how alliances were made, which social forces (and individuals on occasion) hijacked the liberation vehicle, where change happened and where it didn't, and what kind of lessons might be learned for the next stage of struggle'.

The conclusion he reached through the analysis was that the African National Congress, as a result, missed certain opportunities and has therefore caused disillusionment in many of our progressive social movements. The conviction that prevailed then amongst some was that the policies we had adopted demobilised our key allies; that is, the progressive social movements.

Your gathering today as well as your stated intentions to develop a working partnership with government not only refutes these views but indicate that even those we deem our allies can just as be wrong as some of the liberals who only recently, in the aftermath of the April 2004 general elections, propounded the view that social movements should act as an opposition that would counter-balance the power of the African National Congress. Your focus on the question what is to be done about the challenges we face in housing, in particular, confirm yourselves as willing partners to better the lives of our people. Thank you very much therefore for coming aboard at this particular time when we have made the commitment to accelerate delivery by working with communities.

What character and strategic outlook your movement will take is entirely up to you. But I would like to urge you to seriously consider this question in your deliberations for it is in particular the response you give to it that will determine the impact you hope to make in housing delivery.

I thank you.

Issued by: Ministry of Housing
17 August 2004
Source: Department of Housing (http://www.housing.gov.za)