The African National Congress (ANC) in Gauteng has noted with deep concern the level of antagonistic attacks by racist and right-wing groups on Gauteng ANC Chairperson Comrade Panyaza Lesufi for unashamedly and unapologetically defending non-racialism. 

 The demon of racism has no place in our country and society, and it must be uprooted in its totality. It brutalizes entire peoples, warps the process of thought and injects into human society a foul and toxic air of tension, mutual antagonism and hatred. Not only does it demean and dehumanizes its victims it does so also to its practitioners.
 
The provincial chairperson of the ANC is among the leaders who sacrificed their youth , and were unfairly detained fighting for the liberation of this country from a brutal, murderous and oppressive apartheid government that glorified segregation, racism and disregarded the human rights of the majority of this country, who are Africans. 
 
The Provincial Executive Committee of the ANC in Gauteng views attacks and threats to our chairperson in dim light and as direct attacks on the ANC itself and as an insult to the peace loving people of our country .
 
We are aware that for a sustained period of time, right-wing groups and offshoots and remnants of the National Party, organizations such as AfriForum, Freedom Front Plus and others who are defending a certain race and language, have been attacking Cde Lesufi by threatening him with lawsuits for merely defending non-racialism. We want to state it categorically that non-racialism is a policy of the ANC and we are not going to standby and allow white supremacist vultures to carcass on the chairperson of the ANC for standing by and defending our policies.
 
Exactly Two weeks ago, the party that deploys body builders and a defender of white privilege The Democratic Alliance (DA) launched their 2024 campaign in front of Cde Lesufi’s office at the Gauteng Education Department under the guise that they were challenging proposals made in the BELA Bill, which indicates that a school must teach in at least two languages. 

We are aware that DA are losing Afrikaans speaking votes and are now desperately leaning towards winning them back by pretending to be defending Afrikaans, which is utter nonsense.

It is really unfortunate that Helen Zille travelled all the way from Cape Town accompanied by leaders from all provinces and delivered a useless memorandum to Cde Lesufi’s office instead of taking their March to offices of the DA’s own so-called ‘Minister’ of Education in the Western Cape because she was part of the Council of Education Ministers which deliberated on the very same BELA Bill that they purport to be against. The least they could have done was to march to National Parliament to the Portfolio of Education because that is where the process resides now. We must remind them that the deadline for public inputs on the BELA Bill is 15 August 2022. 
 
 The Provincial Executive Committee is also aware that the attacks on our chairperson were heightened after the ANC lead department of education in Gauteng went on an overdrive to rename schools that were previously named after  architects of apartheid who caused untold pain and suffering to our people. After months of pushbacks from various white supremacists and racists groups, Gauteng education MEC and ANC chairperson Panyaza Lesufi bravely officially renamed the Pretoria-based Höerskool Hendrik Verwoerd to Rietondale High School.
 
The African National Congress condemns in the strongest terms unwarranted attacks and threats on our provincial chairperson for implementing ANC policies which are rooted in uprooting racism and any symbols, artefacts and names that represents the dark days of apartheid.
 
The struggle for freedom still remains incomplete as long as the legacy of apartheid remains including the economic legacy of apartheid . This task therefore demands that we achieve the greatest unity of the masses of our people, inspired by the new patriotism, to continue to intensify the fight against racism for our evolution into a non-racial society.

The ANC is the only non-racial organisation which will always advocate for non-racialism and respect for all human rights in this country. We will support Cde Lesufi through this madness of unjustified lawsuits by delusional right-wing groups.