Subject: [SocialistWorker.org] Solidarity from South Africa
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http://socialistworker.org/2012/09/12/solidarity-from-south-africa
Statement: Ashley Fataar
======== SOLIDARITY FROM SOUTH AFRICA ========================================
September 12, 2012
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Ashley Fataar, a South African socialist and member of Keep Left, sends
solidarity greetings to striking Chicago teachers--and explains the ongoing
struggle against the privatization of public education in South Africa.
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I WRITE to you as part of a campaign in Cape Town, South Africa, that is
engaged in precisely the kind of struggle that you are engaged in as well.
The post-apartheid ANC government (with its Democratic Alliance partner) has
been and is continuing to close public schools in South Africa. This year,
the provincial government--the equivalent in South Africa of a state
government--is moving to close over two dozen government schools, all in
working-class areas.
Through a state-owned investment corporation, they have raised the equivalent
of $141 million to hand over to a corporation listed on the stock exchange.
This corporation will, in turn, use this money to buy government schools and
turn them into privately (read: corporate) owned schools.
There is a known disastrous history in South Africa of the private sector in
providing education. It has been revealed this year that millions of reading
books have been criminally destroyed to maintain the profit levels of the
service providers.
But this attack on our education system has not gone unanswered this year. A
group of activists, students, parents and teachers have mobilized in the last
four weeks. We have gone to all the affected schools in Cape Town in
solidarity and to organize resistance to this attack--an attack that has
triggered anger and a determination to fight back.
We have shown the provincial government, in the public meetings that it has
called, that we reject their plan and that we will keep the schools open in
our hands next year--they want to close the schools at the end of this year.
We are inspired at the 50,000-strong march through the streets of Chicago,
and we send you our solidarity greetings. Your struggle to maintain public
schools is also our struggle.
We have one common enemy--capitalism and all the horrors that it produces.
Amandla!
*Ashley Fataar*
Keep Left (South Africa) and the Concerned Committee Against School Closures
in the Western Cape
/Messages of solidarity can be sent to ash.fataar@gmail.com [1]/.
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[1] mailto:ash.fataar@gmail.com
