The African National Congress, together with other formations of our revolutionary Alliance, South African Communist Party, Congress of the South African Trade Unions, South African National Civic Organizations, Friends of the Cuban Society and other progressive forces from the African continent, are hosting Africa-Cuba solidarity conference. An important milestone as we traverse through the contours of the hostile world, dominated by the forces of imperialism and neo colonialism.
The first President of the independent republic of Guinea Bissau, Sekou Toure, said to take part in a revolution, it is not enough to write revolutionary songs, you must fashion the revolution with the people. And if you fashion it with the people, the songs will come by themselves and of themselves. The science is that national consciousness is an organic seedbed for international consciousness.
There is no democratic revolution which can become successful without fashioning its traditions and culture, its organism, strategy and tactics, with the world of solidarity and internationalism. The struggles of the people of the African continent is inextricably linked with the struggles of the Cuban people and the whole of the progressive world of humanity.
The solidarity conference with the people of Cuba is taking place in our country, as we reflect on the heroism of the struggles of the slave people of the first democratic republic of Dos Palmares. We take a glance on the historical significance of the epochal event, which its legacy, remains a source of inspiration, to the struggles of the oppressed people of the world.
The dilemma of the hidden history of the struggles of the slave people of the republic of Dos Palmares, is that even the greatest of the luminaries and polymaths of the science of the struggles of the working class, titans who traversed the realms of wisdom, could not place the remarkable feats of the first slave republic, high on the glorious pages of our history books.
We refer to luminaries of our age, those who contributed immensely, to the theoretical and philosophical development of the science of the struggle of the working class. In the whole history of the struggles of humanity, there had never been such a great and profound revolution, as that of the slave people of Dos Palmares.
The slave people whom we proudly count as versatile giants of our struggles, the pioneers of the new age of modernity, escaped from the gruesome forms of human exploitation from the plantations, mines and factories owned by colonial merchants and landlords, to build an alternative communities in the jungle forests of the republic of Brazil. This was the turning point of the harbinger of a new society, thousands of miles away from where it began.
Philosophers across the intellectual divide have spoken about some of the groundbreaking revolutions in the history of our mother earth, but they have spoken less about Dos Palmares, which undoubtedly was a tremendous human effort, to shook the foundations of imperialism and colonial domination. It is for this reason we refer to Dos Palmares, as the first democratic republic, first slave republic and indeed the first socialist republic in the history of the struggles of the working class.
The leader of the republic was a king elected by the will of the majority, on the basis of royal hierarchy, as most of them came from the African continent. But in essence it was a cosmopolitan society, comprised of African people, who were mostly from the Congo basin and Angola, disgruntled settlers declared as outcasts by their fellow country men of the colonial Europe and most of the indigenous people of Latin America.
The king would devolve his powers to commanders chose by himself to take charge of the subdivided communities of the republic. There would also be selection of candidates to serve in the royal council, based on the will of the majority of the people.
The royal council would be responsible for taking important decisions pertaining to political and socio economic needs of the people. Policy discussions will centred on the most important questions of the general administration of the republic, police and military services and division of labour and trade.
The republic was built on fundamental principles of socialist ideas of collectivism, of equal ownership and distribution of the means of production. They owned land which was used for agriculture, cattle and poultry breeding, clothes, mats, coconuts, cassava, sugar cane and factories to produce steel work such as machete and pots.
Over the years the economy of the republic grew exponentially to the levels that they embarked on a battering system with the local merchants and landlords, exchanging products such as gold, diamond and milk for firearms and ammunition. The backbone of the economy was entirely on the collective ownership of the people.
This is the magnificent history of heroic struggles by the slave people, who for a period of hundred years, defeated most powerful colonial empires of Dutch and Portuguese, which wanted to vanquish the sovereignty of their hard won republic. The slave people of Dos Palmares did not only fight for their own freedom, but the freedom and dignity of all the oppressed people of the world.
In his renowned thesis of the Civil War in France, Karl Marx hails the Paris commune, as the initiation of the social revolution of the nineteenth century, which what ever its fate in Paris, would make le tour du mondo. With profundity, he declared that the workingmen of Paris, with its commune, would be forever celebrated as the glorious harbinger of the new society.
During his address of the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the Paris commune of 18 March 1891, Friederich Engels said”
Of late, the Social-Democratic philistine has once more been filled with wholesome terror at the words: Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Well and good, gentlemen, do you want to know what this dictatorship looks like? Look at the Paris Commune. That was the Dictatorship of the Proletariat”.
Vladimir Lenin spoke of the Soviet government standing on the shoulders of the Paris commune, that is of being the continuation of the Paris commune, and that the Communist Party should state in its program that it strives for the Soviet power, for the Soviet type of government and for the government of the type of the Paris commune.
It is from this premise that we need to subject the important theoretical question of the dark age of slavery to historical analysis and how slave trade contributed towards the development of industrial capitalism. The slave trade was a capitalist labour market which gave rise to the capitalist mode of production.
Therefore more than centuries before the upheavals of the heroic revolutions led by the workers of Paris, the slave people were already exposed to the cold face of capitalist exploitation. The conditions as a result of their consciousness, necessitated of them some form of an organisation, to liberate themselves from the hands of oligarchy of imperialism and colonialism.
One is not saying that the achievements of the democratic slave republic of Palmares, remarkable as they were during the particular historical period, amounted to a modern socialist state, but what is important, is that they created a dimension of a new type of political power, founded on the principles of an ideal socialist society. What is important is the class conscience of the slave people to build they own republic and make it survive for a period of hundred years, based on the foundations of the ideas and principles of a socialist society.
They rose independently and attempted to build on their own way a new society, guided by the universal laws of freedom and equality. But surely the new society of the democratic slave republic of Dos Palmares, was a historic experience of enormous importance, the foundational stone of an egalitarian society and epitaph of the struggles of the working class.
The rhetorical question is between the revolution of the slave people of the republic of Dos Palmares and the revolution of the workingmen of the Paris Commune, which of the two is the real harbinger of the struggles of the international working class movement. Is it Dos Palmares or the Paris commune.
We speak of two most important revolutions in the history of the world, which took place on the time and space of a period of more than two hundred years apart from each other. The one of Dos Palmares took place in 1600 and the one of Paris commune in 1871.
In the transitional period of the world of civilisation tormented by wars and genocides, fundamental violations of human rights, disregard of the conventional laws of the international community, the deep seated world whose majority of its inhabitants find themselves in conditions of absolute poverty, disease and underdevelopment. We take pride of the torchbearers of Dos Palmares, as they continue to illuminate our path into the future.
We implore on the world community of nations, to stop the carnage of genocide unleashed by the apartheid state of Israel against the innocent people of Palestine. The world has the responsibility of bring to an end the savage kingdom of imperialism.
The struggle for the independence and sovereignty of the people of the SAHARAWI is part of the wider struggles to build a just and humane world. Therefore our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the people of Western Sahara.
We demand for the immediate end of the economic blockade against the people of Cuba. We demand for their freedom and dignity, we shall always give our unflinching support, in the wake of the unprecedented aggression by the American empire.
The struggles of the slave people of the democratic republic of Dos Palmares is a testament of the greater heights of the common goals of human solidarity and internationalism. On the occasion of Africa-Cuba solidarity conference, our Africa remains our America and our America remains our Africa.
We are emboldened by the heroism of the slave people of the republic of Dos Palmares, appreciating each and every passing moment, as we continue to foster the kind of society, we want to be. We are encouraged by the indomitable acts of resilience and determination, of overcoming obstacles which seemed to be insurmountable.
One is cognisant of some amongst our folk, whose notion is dwelling on the past is futile, as it holds no power to the present and the future, but not understanding that we are not yet at the end of history, as it continues to shape the world. Ours is to tell this magnificent novel of history, whose significance continues to broaden the horizons, of the very aspirations of the future, which is yet to come.
Vladimir Lenin was mouthful when he said” we have started this work, how long it will take and whose country proletarians are going to finish, is not the main issue. The main is issue is that the ice is broken, the road is open, and the coarse is set”.
Ambassador Phatse Justice Piitso is a member of the ANC and the SACP, writing this article on his personal capacity.
***
Amb Justice Phatse Piitso is a member of the ANC and SACP and a former Chief of Staff in the Office of the Secretary-General of the ANC. He wrote this article in his personal capacity.