NEUM

By Abigail George, as told to by Dr Ambrose Cato George, my father

There is a relentless battle against all agents amongst the oppressed peoples who served the function and cause of Herrenvolkinism, Baasskap, foreign domination, and exploitation of the workers. Victory is ours.

In order to achieve these broad principles, the NEUM was saying to the oppressed masses and students that the building of the unity of all the oppressed in South Africa was an urgent necessity and the primary function of the workers for liberation in South Africa. And the liberation movement should have its demands on the ‘Ten Point Programme which was a list of minimum demands and to implement the policy of non-collaboration as an imperative duty of the proletariat and their leadership. The idler wheel is wiser.

The Non-European Unity Movement struggle was against the oppressive capitalistic/imperialistic system of exploitation (not only in South Africa), but also abroad. The ten-point programme represented minimum demands and they were and they were the least that the oppressed people would accept in order to guarantee free and equal citizenship and rights to enable them to throw off the yolk of poverty, oppression, exploitation, violation and denial of their basic human rights. The struggle continues in this modern age.

The struggle for complete liberation of the proletariat and the rest of the oppressed in South Africa was necessary to intensify as the barriers that had been erected between the enfranchised and the disenfranchised had become more and more pronounced and penetrable. With the advent of tribal universities were even strangled more. The demands of the Non-European Unity Movement as mentioned above were completely non-negotiable. To this resourceful day, these are the way that all things still stand.

They were not demands on which on which the exploited and disenfranchised masses would negotiate.

The demands were nothing less than the full ‘Ten Point Programme’ which basically consisted of the following.

1. The rights of every man and woman over the age of 18 years to elect and be elected to a new democratic parliament and to all other levels of government, both regional and local.
2. The right to work. Freedom of occupation, living wages and just benefits for all workers.
3. Compulsory free and uniform education for all children with ultimate matriculation with free meals, free books and school equipment.
4. Adequate housing and the provision of free comprehensive medical care for all.
5. The right to one’s home, privacy and freedom of movement.
6. Full equality of rights for all citizens without distinction of race, colour or sex.
7. Revision of the land question for the benefit of all.
8. Freedom of speech, press, meetings and association.
9. Non-discriminatory and criminal codes of law in accordance with the democratic principles as expressed above.
10. A just progressive system of taxation in accordance with the democratic principles as expressed above.

Together with the ‘Ten Point Programme’ the NEUM political programme also included the use of the weapon of the boycott and the policy of non-collaboration which meant that you never work the machinery of your own oppression. These were the tenets of Abdura-Oef Salie’s political philosophy. These policies of the NEUM were also very attractive to Dr Ambrose Cato George when he was a student exclusive Coloured University (the University of the Western Cape) in Belville-South in 1962, 1963, and 1964.

He was an active member of the Cape Peninsula Student Union (CPSU), Society of Young Africans (SOYA), African People’s Democratic Union of South Africa (APDUSA) and finally a member of the Yu Chi Chan Club (YCCC), which was also called the National Liberation Front. Pause, we must. Act we will.