Chris Matlhako (Communist Party of South-Africa) May day speech in Tampere

May Day in Tampere, Finland

Reclaim the revolutionary traditions of May Day! Fight for social equality! Defend democratic rights! Stop the drive to war! For the international unity of the working class!

We bring revolutionary greetings from the workers and the working class of democratic South Africa of Nelson Mandela.

We salute you for the internationalist solidarity you demonstrated during the apartheid-era, resulting in the largest anti-apartheid movement in the world even in these parts of the world.

This solidarity achieved the release of Nelson Mandela and his comrades from Robben Island, where they spent almost three decades in prison and the democratization of South Africa.

Today, as we mark May 1st, we do so with confidence that a better world is indeed possible.

The legacy of Nelson Mandela – his ideals and aspirations continue to inspire many across the world to struggle for dignity, equality, non racialism and prosperity for all.

This we believe, will be achieved only through the unity of the most opposes send and the rocking people’s.

Capitalism inflicts horror after horror on people all around the world: poverty and starvation in every country, the murderous wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria, the economic crisis sweeping Europe that has led to savage austerity measures, mass unemployment and misery.

In the course if global financial crisis trillions of dollars have been handed out to bankers while at the same time tens of millions of workers have lost their livelihoods.

Nearly half of the worlds population lives on less than $2.50 a day and 1.2 billion are starving or malnourished.

The revolution has to continue and deepen if the mass if workers and the poor are to achieve a decent life.

Our solidarity and unity of purpose is important to achieve victory over rampant crony capitalism and the translational corporations, which continue to devastate our environment and contribute towards militarism and the marginalization of the majority of the people.

We should continue to forge ahead the ideals that were espoused by and resulted in the historic May Day – where workers took to the streets to demand 8hour working week and other benefits. This has resulted in international recognizing of May Day!

Through those struggles, we achieved many gains as workers.

However, the unity if purpose as workers, is even more needed, more than before to push back the frontiers of capitalism.

Long live internationalist solidarity!

CPFinland