The Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (POPCRU) supports the upcoming 27th Joe Slovo Commemorative event which will be taking place tomorrow, the 6th of January 2022 at Avalon Cemetery in Soweto from 11am.

We join millions of South Africans from all walks of like in remembering and saluting the immense contributions made by comrade Joe Slovo in our struggle to liberate ourselves from the tyranny of apartheid and colonialism of a special type.

Since his passing 27 years ago, he has left us with a legacy that we should continue to cherish as he made an immense contribution in theorising our struggle, and was a towering intellectual giant whose visionary leadership, acute working class instincts helped steer the alliance from many of what had seemed to be the insurmountable challenges it had then faced. 

Commemorating Joe Slovo marks out his extraordinary life-long devotion as a strategic thinker who not only served in the National Consultative Committee that led to the unpretentious Congress of the People in 1955- leading to the drafting of the Freedom Charter, but as well a comrade who helped to write and articulate the Morogoro “Strategy and Tactics” which, to this day, remains a referral point as one of the most important moments of our liberation struggle history.

He is also remembered as a comrade whom through his involvement in the founding and active participation in the manoeuvres of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) served as its Chief of Staff.

As we continue to confront contemporary challenges faced by workers and the working class of our country and beyond, including poverty, inequality and unemployment, compounded by attacks on collective bargaining and the reneging from signed agreements, we should not lose sight of the horizon but draw strength from the aptitude and bravery that Joe Slovo and his generation of leaders demonstrated under the difficult circumstances.

We will continue honouring Joe Slovo by taking forward the struggle to transform the criminal justice cluster, wage struggles against any threat to collective bargaining, fighting the triple challenges of poverty, inequality and unemployment, transforming gender relations in our country, and most importantly, through building a stronger trade union movement and other mass formations.

Issued by POPCRU on 05/01/2022

For more information contact Richard Mamabolo on 066 135 4349