 May 25th is celebrated as African Liberation Day, commemorating the struggles for liberation from colonialism and the formation of the Organization of African Unity in 1963. Comprising 21 member states, the organization supported liberation movements in Africa's remaining colonies and coordinated the construction of a new African society free of exploitation. The antecedents of African Liberation Day go as far as 1900 and 1945 when pan-African conferences were held in London and Manchester respectively. The struggle to build African solidarity through pan-Africanism was driven by legendary revolutionary leaders such as Kwame Krumah, the first Prime Minister and President of Independent Ghana. In a year of Ghana's independence on 15 April 1958, Krumah convened the All African People's Conference, the first meeting of independent African states. The conference set the stage for connecting diverse movements of resistance from different contexts under one banner. It also set out instructions on how to go about the immediate task of liberating Africans from colonial bondage. Within two years, that is, in 1960, 17 African countries gained independence and by 1963, 32 African countries gained independence. The Organization of African Unity was founded in May 1963 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, by 32 African states to coordinate and intensify the cooperation of African states as well as to defend the sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence of African states. Pan-Africanism is, at its core, a people's movement for the liberation of humanity from the exploitation of capitalism and imperialism. While African Liberation Day was instituted to focus attention on the national liberation struggle throughout Africa, it was meant to rid all of Africa of all the vestiges of classical colonialism. Unfortunately, today, as we celebrate African Liberation Day, there are still countries in the Indian Ocean, like the Diego Island, there is still the case of Western Sahara, which remains under Moroccan colonial occupation. So African Liberation from Classical Colonialism is not over yet. Indeed, for some of us, we would like to even extend African Liberation beyond classical colonialism to today's new colonialism, in which African resources are owned and exploited for the benefit of the colonial metropolis or multinational corporations in the colonial metropolis. Africa has enormous resources. Indeed, Kwame Krumah in his book, Africa Must Unite, makes the point that Africa has more than 50% of the total resources of the world. These resources include oil and gas. These resources include uranium, bauxite, naming, diamonds, gold, and so on. An incredible manpower, virgin forests, rivers, and so on. Now, in spite of all of these resources, in spite of the claim that Africa has more than 50% of the total resources of the world, Africans still suffer. The gradient poverty, they suffer electricity, they suffer from lack of access to social services like housing and health, and so on. Today is Africa Day, and for us as the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa, we view this day as a day to remind us of the importance of African unity. South Africa has been a beneficiary of the unity and the solidarity of Africa. During the dark days of apartheid, we were able to intensify our fight against the apartheid system, primarily because of all the support that we received from other sympathetic African nations. The front line states, nations like Mozambique, like Angola, like Zambia, and Tanzania played a very important role in ending the system of apartheid. They provided food and shelter and accommodation for members of the liberation movement who were fleeing the brutal apartheid system. They provided education and training for members of the liberation movement so that we could continue the fight against apartheid outside the borders of South Africa. Now we are living in a post-apartheid South Africa, and we have a duty to thank members of the African working class for their sacrifices, for their support, and for their solidarity. Why is the African reality what it is today? The African reality is what it is today simply because the yoke of colonialism has not been broken completely. We still remain the drawers of water and heroes of mood from the imperial powers, and today we are still being told stories about how we can only get out of our underdevelopment if we follow the Western pattern. The Western pattern is not a path to follow, because if you trace that path, that path leads you not just to classical colonialism, but it leads you to the transatlantic slave trade, and it leads you to classical colonialism, and leads you to today's new colonialism. African states today cannot capture others to work for them as beasts of burden for hundreds of years. Today we cannot really enact the transatlantic slave trade as a basis for accumulating capital for future development. We cannot take weapons and colonize other people anywhere in the world in order to steal their resources so that we can develop. We are left with one option, and that option is self-reliant development. That option is continental self-reliance development on the basis of Pan-Africanism and Socialism as was envisaged by the Free Pan-African Congress in Manchester. The peoples of Africa today are suffering as a result of the imposition of economic conditions by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. These austerity measures have included increasing the level of taxation, increasing the cost of water and electricity, it has maintained escalating food prices and so on. We have to defeat the IMF. We have to defeat the World Bank. We have to defeat imperialism, and the only way forward is the unity of the African people under the banner of scientific socialism. We must succeed and we will succeed. If we are to ever live in a world of peace, a world of genuine democracy, a world of genuine equality, then we have to unite. We have to fight for socialism and ensure that we create a world where the wealth of the country is shared amongst all of us. And this now is the new struggle that we need to fight, and the only way that we are going to defeat this evil system of capitalism is if we unite across borders, if we unite around our demands and we fight for genuine democracy, genuine freedom and genuine equality. On behalf of the largest, most militant trade union in South Africa, we wish you a wonderful Africa Day. Alluda, continue.