President Cyril Ramaphosa Honors Joe Slovo at 30th Annual Commemoration in Soweto
(The Post News)– President Cyril Ramaphosa joined the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the working-class movement today, January 6, 2025, at the Avalon Cemetery in Soweto, Johannesburg, at the 30th Annual Joe Slovo Commemoration to honor the life and legacy of the late Comrade Joe Slovo. Slovo, a revered anti-apartheid revolutionary, intellectual, and leader of the SACP, was remembered for his profound influence on South Africa’s liberation movement.
Joe Slovo, an anti-apartheid stalwart and revolutionary thinker, was a founding member of the Congress of Democrats, one of the earliest members of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), and a former Chief of Staff of the ANC’s military wing. As General Secretary and later Chairman of the SACP, he played a pivotal role in shaping South Africa’s liberation struggle and its post-apartheid policies.
In his address, President Ramaphosa reflected on Slovo’s pivotal contributions to the struggle for freedom, sharing that Joe Slovo was never emotional but was always rational and willing to listen. He also remarked that Joe Slovo wrote significant documents that established the wide viewpoints of their movement. He credited Slovo for fostering a culture of intellectual rigour within the liberation movement, adding that the alliance and the democratic movement looked to him and the SACP as the vanguard organisation of their revolution.
Drawing on the words of Nelson Mandela, Ramaphosa described Slovo as a revolutionary who did not merely interpret the world but actively worked to change it. He also added that Joe Slovo was not an armchair politician but a revolutionary who applied himself to the task of the moment in practical terms, and that is the example they should follow.
In an interview with enca, SACP spokesperson Alex Mashilo echoed these views, stating that Slovo’s vision for a democratic South Africa remains relevant by pointing to the alliance’s historical roots. Mashilo noted that the alliance’s foundations trace back to resolutions adopted in the Soviet Union in 1928 and ratified in Johannesburg in 1929 by the Communist party, with the purpose to transform South Africa into a democratic republic with equal rights for all. Joe Slovo remains a towering figure in South Africa’s struggle for liberation.
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