[DEBATE] : Marches are not enough

[Dominic Tweedie]

Comrades,

I have been very moved by Angela Lang's simple e-mail.

While "leftists" are organising marches, it is clear that the suburban
middle class, Muslim, Hindu, Christian and Jewish, are probably at
this moment doing more for this disaster situation, in terms of
material aid to the tens of thousands of newly homeless people, than
all of our vaunted "structures" put together.

I have just been to the YCL's press conference. With their thousands
of members and their supposed dialectical materialism, they are still
at this point lagging behind such organisations as "Chubby Chums" in
terms of their practical contribution to the massive material problem
facing the victims of the pogroms.

Comrades of the DEBATE, in South Africa and overseas, could we
Internet-savvy characters, as we are, not start using this medium of
ours to mobilise material aid?

It is now coming towards the end of the second week of a disaster
which is on the scale of an earthquake in its effects, just to leave
its causes aside for the moment.

It is clear that there is a long-term political problem and I am not
denying that the remedy for it must get under way without any delay.

But the most acute aspect of this disaster is the survival and rescue
of tens of thousands of men, women, children and babies who have lost
everything in the middle of the winter-time.

For pity's sake, comrades!