HUNDREDS of left-wing activists gathered in Johannesburg, South Africa, for the third Dilemmas of Humanity international conference said that socialism “is the only possibility” for progress.

About 500 activists from more than 70 countries are meeting from October 14 to 18 to debate issues ranging from health, housing, food sovereignty, migrant rights and how the working class can best organise on an international basis.

National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) general secretary Irvin Jim told the conference: “The capitalist system attacks not only work, but also our lives. Capitalism is incompatible with life. 

“The working class must build its own organic and intellectual detachment that subordinates itself to the pursuit of socialism.”

Organised by the International Peoples’ Assembly and hosted by NUMSA, the Residents of the Shacks and the Socialist Revolutionary Workers Party of South Africa, the conference was opened by a panel that included Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine member Leila Khaled and South African foreign minister Naledi Pandor.

Ms Khaled said: “We are a people of strength, of will, of dignity, of humanity. We are defending humanity in Palestine. If Palestine is occupied, there is no peace in the world. Palestine is not only for Palestinians, it is a human cause.”

Ms Pandor said: “For 16 years, the Gaza Strip has been under siege, with its people struggling to survive. 

“Palestinians are denied exit and entry. We also had to enter separate entrances here in South Africa. We went through that too.”

She said: “Beautiful speeches are no use. I may feel good, but if the next day my rhetoric does not lead to action my speech is useless.”

Daniel Jadue, the mayor of the Recoleta municipality and a member of the Communist Party of Chile, said activists needed to remember that “socialism is not just a possibility, it is the only possibility” available to humanity.