‘RO’ should serve as inspiration in today’s continuing Struggle
IT WAS heartening to read the piece by Thembile Ndabeni on Richard Owen (RO) Dudley in the Cape Times of April 25.
Interestingly, Ndabeni refers (unwittingly?) to Dudley as a “coloured,” which would certainly have irked the man himself.
This is because RO, as he was widely known, was at the forefront of a lifelong Struggle for nonracialism. It is well-known that apartheid was a form of ethnonationalism which was underpinned by an exaggerated form of social stratification.
Thus, the Struggle for nonracialism was a key attempt to undermine the bastions of rulingclass ideology.
As Ndabeni rightly points out, Dudley was an individual of extraordinary personal talent, who chalked up an impressive record of academic achievement.
However, his claim to fame was his commitment to education and to the anti-apartheid Struggle.
As a leading member of the Teachers’ League of South Africa and the Unity Movement, he played a key role in the fight for a democratic South Africa.
He saw through the hoax of the Codesa process, and in his writings and speeches drew attention to the fact that Codesa was an imperialist bid to “modernise” the system of oppression.
Thus, “race” would be expunged from our statute books, but capitalism (especially Big Capital) through a liberal constitution, would be enabled to thrive in the emergent era of neoliberalism. The history of the last 30 years has fully vindicated him.
Had RO been alive today, he would have looked with contempt on the mockery which our current electoral politics have made of the real thing.
He would have viewed Parliament as nothing but a feeding trough for all those opportunistic politicians whose primary motive is not service to the people, but self-interest.
Thus, the Struggle continues. We should draw inspiration from past giants such as RO Dudley, and keep our focus on the anti-capitalist, antiimperialist struggle.
And so, our watchword should remain: A luta continua. CHARLES THOMAS | Rondebosch East