Restless Nation. William Gumede
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that behavioural change among citizens is only going to be fostered if ANC party leaders are seen to follow the rules applicable to everyone else. Flagrant disregard of the new democratic laws by post-apartheid leaders will only encourage the apartheid-era culture of evading the law to persist. There should not be two sets of laws: one for the party aristocracy and another for ordinary citizens. A lifestyle audit of all party leaders and public servants is absolutely crucial – it will also boost public confidence.
Drop black economic empowerment as a policy and give companies BEE points for how much they invest in job creation, black education and housing; and for uplifting the physical and social infrastructure of townships and rural areas, and supporting the five million entrepreneurs in the informal sector.
Honesty must also be restored to the centre of public debate. In a crisis, it is better for any government to stick with core policies, provided these are genuinely in the interest of the whole country, and then resolutely implement them. Doublespeak to try to please everyone will just compound the uncertainty, drift and paralysis.
Only substantial reform at the centre – in party, government and individual behaviour – will inject fresh public confidence and unlock the paralysis. If the ANC leadership continue with ‘business as usual’ in the face of our current crisis, it will hit the electoral fortunes of the party. If public service delivery remains sluggish, and leaders keep on looting, more and more ANC members and supporters will desert the party.
Doing nothing will continue a negative cycle of waning public trust in the government, which can only lead to more violent community rebellions and more self-enrichment at the top as those in power loot as much and as quickly as possible before the resources dry up. Inevitably, those in the private sector with the talent and money will then either cut their losses in South Africa and run, or eschew public commitment to look after themselves and their families.
Mail & Guardian, 23 March 2010
Where will the ANC be in another 100 years?
More than 100 000 people celebrated the ANC’s centenary by attending three days of festivities in Mangaung township, Bloemfontein – the birthplace of South Africa’s ruling party. The nature of the celebration mirrored the state of the ANC today. Leaders dressed in the latest fashions were served expensive food and drink in air-conditioned VIP tents while ordinary members sat in the scorching sun with their free bottled water.
President Zuma lit a centenary flame, which is now touring South Africa as a symbol of the fight against apartheid. The South African Post Office released a commemorative stamp to celebrate Africa’s oldest liberation movement. But, sadly, the ANC is in danger of having only past glories to celebrate. It seems as if the ANC leadership of today and their values are at odds with the party’s rich heritage. The challenges of being in government are threatening to overwhelm them, just as they did other African liberation movements.
A leitmotif that runs through the history of the ANC has been its ability to revitalise itself in times of decline by taking in new progressive groups. This was either done by democrats from within or by the ANC incorporating other democratic movements and in the process transforming itself. In many ways these waves of renewal over the past 100 years showcase the different eras which the ANC has gone through.
The first, the foundation era, started when the ANC was formed in 1912 by a group of black leaders (mostly chiefs, professionals and businessmen) to fight for black rights and freedoms in the new Union of South Africa. In the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902 (also called the South African War) the two Boer republics were defeated by the British. In 1910 they were brought together with the two colonial provinces to form the Union of South Africa, but blacks were denied political rights in the new dispensation.
By the time the Union of South Africa came into being, the British had also broken the power of the last of the African kingdoms, and in 1906 suppressed the last organised African rebellion in Zululand – the Bambatha rebellion. On 8 January 1912 the South African Native National Congress was formed at the Wesleyan Church in Waaihoek, Bloemfontein. In 1923 it changed its name to the African National Congress.
The founding leaders of the ANC were lawyers such as Pixley ka Isaka Seme, Richard Msimang and Alfred Mangena, journalists such as Sol Plaatje and religious leaders like the Reverend John Dube. This group of leaders called not only for the emancipation of black South Africans, but also, in the words of Seme, for ‘the regeneration of Africa’ as a whole.
A second era came when the ANC turned to socialism in the 1920s, under the leadership of Josiah Tshangana Gumede and Eddie Khaile, its general secretary. They were the first African members of the SACP leadership and were influenced by the radical revolutions in Europe.
A third era spans the 1930s, when the ANC leadership, again under the presidency of Seme, focused on economic self-realisation and starting societies and businesses for blacks. Thereafter came an era during which the ANC was radicalised by members of the ANC Youth League – the generation of Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo and Walter Sisulu. In their 1949 programme of action document they forced the lacklustre ANC leadership of the time to adopt the strategy of mass action. During this era the Freedom Charter was adopted and mass protests, like the Women’s March and the mass burning of pass documents, took place.
The late 1960s and early 1970s belonged to the generation of Steve Biko, the leader of the Black Consciousness (BC) movement, which had its roots in the black student movement. Biko argued that blacks had to shake off their inferiority complexes, ingrained by centuries of white oppression, if they were to achieve national liberation. He also called for democratic practices to be at the centre of the anti-apartheid struggle.
The 16 June 1976 Soweto uprising by high school pupils, led by the likes of Tsietsi Mashinini, brought a new radicalism to the ANC. They protested against the introduction of Afrikaans as the compulsory medium of instruction in black schools and were recruited en masse into the ANC, providing the organisation with a new street-smart generation.
Then came the 1980s, which brought two parallel waves within the ANC. First, the idea of the ‘intifada’ was brought to the organisation by a new generation who were prepared to sacrifice their lives for liberation. They used the slogan ‘victory or death’. At the same time there were ‘adult’ movements like the United Democratic Front (UDF) – an internal umbrella group of civil groups – nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) and black professional associations, the revitalised trade union movement and white issue-based groups that were opposed to apartheid.
Throughout South Africa’s history, colonial and apartheid governments ruled blacks through divide-and-conquer tactics in an attempt to make effective black opposition against oppression impossible. Mac Maharaj, transport minister in the cabinet of former president Nelson Mandela, said the ANC’s key success was its ability to unify black people against these divisionary tactics. The ANC, through its fierce resistance, gave many blacks a sense of self-worth and a cause. It offered a positive alternative.
The ANC’s success as a liberation movement was due to its visionary leadership, its mission to be inclusive of all races, ethnicities and classes, and the fact that it practised inclusive democracy.
In the main, the ANC’s internal operation ethos, whether among cadres in exile or political prisoners on Robben Island, was one of consultation, inclusiveness, freedom of expression and the right to dissent. This is not to say that there were not incidences of autocracy or the torture of independently minded members, especially in the exiled armed wing and intelligence structures, or that there were not Stalinist elements, eager to crush dissent, but these were mostly held in check by more democratically minded members.
One of the ANC’s biggest successes as a liberation movement was to turn the struggle against apartheid into a moral battle which was fought on a global scale. This strategy was one of the reasons Western churches strongly backed the ANC from the 1980s onwards, generously providing funding and lobbying their governments and congregations to put pressure on the apartheid government.
The ANC produced visionary leaders such as Nelson Mandela, Albert Luthuli and Desmond Tutu. These leaders had moral authority – and by their individual ethical and moral conduct also reinforced the moral dimensions of the struggle.