"SA National Convention" : Questions for our born-again democrats from COSATU
Thématique :
sud afrique
COSATU, 30 October 2008
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) believes that the overwhelming majority of South Africans will see through the so-called 'National Convention' being convened this weekend by a clique of disgruntled former members of the African National Congress (ANC), unable to accept the results of a democratic process.
For the minority of delegates who may be attending this jamboree mistakenly believing that it is a genuine political movement with serious policies, we suggest that you pose some probing questions from the Convention floor. We outline below questions in twelve key areas on which we are convinced the convention organisers have no credible answers.
The "SA National Convention" has only one aim - to divide and disrupt the ANC and its allies, and provide a launching pad to reinstate the discredited agenda which was defeated democratically at Polokwane last year.
They not only have a total contempt for democracy, but insult the intelligence of the vast majority of South Africans, who can see through their transparent ploy. We are convinced that they will fail in this attempt, and we will do all in our power to expose their agenda to the country as a whole.
Its founders speak on behalf of South Africa's rich and powerful, who hate and fear the mass movement which swept their representatives from their positions of power at the ANC's Polokwane Conference in 2007.
But rather than campaign through the democratic structures of the movement to convince the majority of their views, they have opted to form an opposition party, which will soon expose its true colours, as the champion of a small elite in society - a black DA.
They know they cannot defeat the ANC in a straight fight but aim to confuse voters with false, demagogic promises in the hope of cutting its majority and preventing the implementation of the many progressive resolutions passed at Polokwane.
All the gains we have made since 1994 under the ANC government, despite the machinations of Lekota and his ilk, and the progress we still need to make in the next period, will be under threat if we allow this unprincipled gang to gain any credibility.
Ever since its launch in 1985, COSATU has consistently supported the ANC, in the firm belief that it is the only party which has roots deeply embedded in the people, which can genuinely claim to speak for the majority of South Africans and has remained a liberation movement with a bias towards the workers and the poor.
The ANC's historic 2007 Polokwane Conference has strengthened that view. Delegates endorsed COSATU's view that our society remains trapped by the racial, class and gender divisions and inequalities of the past and that the national democratic revolution (NDR) - or the fundamental transformation of apartheid social relations - is far from completed. They sent out a message that our leaders must never lose touch with their mass base or ignore the voice of their constituents.
They also rebelled against many of the undemocratic, top-down, elite-driven practices of the previous leadership, including the misuse of state institutions and the public broadcaster for narrow factional interests, and the growing alien culture of self-enrichment which had led to the abuse by people in government to line their pockets and advance their business interests.
Polokwane rejected the suppression of debate and the ridiculing, labelling and bullying of political opponents as 'ultra leftists' and 'counter revolutionaries'. They revived the movement's traditions of service to the people, without any expectation of material reward.
The convenors of the 'National Convention' on the other hand represent everything that the delegates were protesting against. Their strategy is to turn the clock back, to try and regain what they lost at Polokwane. Yet they try to justify their decision by turning reality on its head, claiming they want to:
§ Defend and strengthen democracy
§ Defend the constitution and institutions of democracy
§ Ensure political tolerance
§ Ensure the rule of law and equality of all before the law
§ Continue to work to entrench non-racial, non-sexist, democratic, prosperous and inclusive South Africa imbibed with the implementation of second-generation rights as enshrined in the Bill of Rights.
This is hypocrisy of the highest order. The public record of these people reveals them to have opposed in practice every one of these principles. That is why COSATU demands that they answer questions on these twelve key areas:
Area 1- Organisational democracy and political tolerance
Leaders of this splinter have claimed to be fighting against undemocratic organisational practices, and promoting political tolerance. But we ask:
§ Why have they refused to accept the democratic process at the ANC's National Conference in Polokwane?
§ Why were Terror Lekota and his allies the most brutal enforcers of the undemocratic practices of the former ANC leadership, through the use of patronage, politics of fear and labelling, and abuse of state institutions?
§ In which ANC Conference, NGC, NEC or branch was GEAR ever discussed before being declared non-negotiable?
§ In which ANC Conference, NGC, NEC or branch was ASGI-SA discussed before being publicly announced?
§ What kind of democracy is it when key policies are imposed from above?
§ Is their real reason for refusing to fight from within the ANC, against what they claim are 'undemocratic practices' post-Polokwane, because the membership have democratically removed them from positions of power?
§ Are they going to reintroduce this undemocratic culture into the party they plan to launch?
Area 2: Policy - in whose interests?
So far, Shikota et al have completely ducked the question of what is the policy basis, if any, for their disagreement with the ANC or the Polokwane Resolutions, and why they have not raised these differences within the ANC. We can only assume, based on their track record, and the elitist agenda they have come to represent, that they will continue to advance their pro-rich and anti-working class platform, which no doubt will be dressed up in quasi-liberal DA-babble. So we must question on economic policy:
§ Is your unhappiness with the ANC, because it has decisively shifted away from the 1996 pro-rich Gear policies, and now wants to move government in a pro-poor direction?
§ Why did you not object when the RDP was abandoned in favour of the neoliberal GEAR strategy which led to massive job losses, poverty and widening inequalities, and left white monopoly capital in the same dominant position as under apartheid?
§ Why did you not oppose privatisation of basic services, which led to retrenchments, higher tariffs and poorer service?
§ Will your party propose a return to the 1996 Gear project which has created such devastation in our country?
On the issue of electoral reform, which is the only policy they have felt safe to talk about, given the interests of their constituency, they have come up with a completely opportunistic and contradictory mixture of ideas. Shilowa now claims to be in favour of a constituency-based electoral system, which he concedes he consistently opposed while he was in the ANC, despite COSATU's long standing campaign for this reform. We ask:
§ Isn't this sudden change pure opportunism, to tap into workers' and the broader public's unhappiness with the current electoral system?
§ Is it all of a sudden because a democratised ANC now has the power to ensure accountability of its MPs to the electoral mandate, as opposed to previously when a clique in government imposed an agenda on them?
§ Linked to this, if they genuinely support the principle of (constituency) accountability by MPs, why are they opposing it for the President, who in terms of our constitution, can be recalled by Parliament or the ruling party?
§ Is it because their leader Cde Mbeki was recalled, or do they want a US-style presidential system in which the President is beholden to rich and powerful interests, and unaccountable to elected representatives of the people?
§ Is accountability selective?
§ Will such policy contradictions be a feature of the new party?
Area 3: Defence of the Freedom Charter
The Shikota group opportunistically claim to support the Freedom Charter, because they know how close it is to the hearts of our people. Yet they are responsible for consistently attempting to drive the movement away from the ideals of the Charter, and have argued that it is a historical document no longer relevant to our times. In fact one of this grouping's key ideologues argued in an Alliance meeting in 2001 that the Charter was outdated and should be abandoned. Therefore they need to answer:
§ Why do they only talk about one clause of the Charter: 'All shall be Equal before the Law' - which as we show below they have violated - but remain silent on the other clauses?
§ Is it because these other clauses are against their class interests?
§ Why are they silent on key clauses, such as 'the people shall govern' (which requires respect for the outcome of democratic processes), 'the people shall share in the country's wealth' (not the wealth shall be owned by a small elite), the land shall be shared amongst those who work it (not appropriated by a few for game lodges and wine farms), and that 'there shall be work and security' (not we shall pursue policies which lead to mass unemployment and hunger)?
Area 4: Rule of law and protecting institutions of democracy
This grouping's support for cronyism, unaccountability and abuse of state institutions to advance narrow political objectives is well known. As recent events, including the Nicholson judgement showed, this extended to abuse of state institutions, including the NPA, to hound and prosecute their political opponents.
The Pikoli, Selebi, Zuma and other episodes show a complete contempt for our democratic institutions, and demonstrates that indeed, all have not been equal before the law. Therefore we need to ask:
§ What makes this group think that we will trust them with our democratic institutions, when they have totally failed to defend them in the past?
§ What have they done, during their term of office, to fight corruption and cronyism?
§ If their party comes to power, will they again support these practices?
Area 5: The arms deal and the SANDF
Two of the main movers in this group are the former Minister of Defence and his Deputy. Yet not once have they stood up against the undemocratic imposition of the arms deal on the country. On the contrary they have defended it. Further they have been guilty of the perpetration of undemocratic and authoritarian practices in the SANDF. So we need to ask those thinking of joining this new grouping if they are happy being led by people:
§ Who have defended the arms deal, and the chief driver of that deal, Thabo Mbeki, in his prosecution of this deal, at all costs;
§ Who, as Ministers, told defence force unions that they were prepared to issue instructions for the army to fire live bullets on workers during the 2007 public sector strike;
§ Who refused to allow the unions in the SANDF their democratic right to affiliate to COSATU;
§ Who dismissed female SANDF members who got pregnant whilst in service;
§ Who, until ordered by a court to change the policy, supported discrimination against security force members living with HIV/AIDS, and defied the court when they ordered the SANDF to stop its acts of discrimination against those living with HIV and AIDS?
Will they support an independent judicial commission of enquiry into the arms deal?
Area 6: Splitting the labour movement
A number of key figures in the Shikota group historically come from the labour movement. In the past they have solemnly committed themselves to advance a fundamental goal of labour - the unification of workers and the creation of one federation in the country. They undertook to do nothing which would divide workers or undermine worker unity. We therefore ask:
§ Why are they now irresponsibly attempting to stoke division in the labour movement, actively undermine union structures, and talking of setting up a federation to oppose COSATU?
§ Is this because they need the electoral muscle of workers, and want to use them as electoral fodder in setting up their black DA?
§ Or is it to weaken workers in the interests of their friends in business?
§ Have they now completely abandoned any pretence of supporting the interests of the workers and the poor?
Area 7: Ethnicity
Figures in this grouping have claimed to oppose what they claim is the promotion of ethnicity in the post-Polokwane leadership, despite all objective evidence to the contrary; and in contrast to the emergence of a worrying ethnic dimension, foreign to our politics, in part fuelled by the undemocratic ethos which crept into the post-1996 ANC. In fact this grouping, more than any other, was associated with ethnic mobilisation, both in the ANC, and the labour movement. Therefore we need to ask:
§ Does this grouping, including Terror Lekota, now distance itself from the ethnic-based mobilisation they promoted in the past in the ANC and labour movement?
§ Should we believe that such unprincipled behaviour will not again be promoted in their new party?
Area 8: HIV/AIDS
Hundreds of thousands of South Africans have died unnecessarily from AIDS, in large part as a result of the denialism of the previous leadership, with which this group is associated. So we ask:
§ Why is it that not a single leader of this Shikota grouping ever spoke out when they were in government against the former President's denial that HIV causes AIDS?
§ Why did they never condemn President Thabo Mbeki when he claimed that he had not know anyone dying of AIDS at a time when government statistics showed that over 900 were dying of AIDS every day?
§ Why did they never raise their voices when the former Minister of Health, Manto Tshabalala Msimang, sent out confusing messages about beetroot and garlic at the time when ANC policy demanded access to antiretrovirals?
§ Why did not a single one of them come to the defence of the former Deputy Minister, Nosizwe Madlala Routledge, when she was fired by the former President for standing up for the health of our people?
§ Can we expect a continuation of this denialism and amoral behaviour when they form their party?
Area 9: Zimbabwe and democracy in the Region
We have all watched in disbelief as the previous leadership in government, of which the Shikota group were part, allowed and even tacitly encouraged, the undemocratic conduct of leaders in the region. In part, it appeared that this support was based on a fear that a successful challenge to authoritarianism in those countries, would lead to a challenge to undemocratic practices in our country.
The hardship, repression and hunger which many of our neighbours have experienced, especially in Zimbabwe and Swaziland, is in no small measure as a result of this policy of 'quiet diplomacy' which the Shikota group supported. We received no support from them for our attempts to mobilise in solidarity with our neighbours. Rather we were subjected to all types of insults and lectures. Therefore we ask:
§ Will they continue to follow this approach of political denialism in the region, and continue to turn a blind eye to the suffering of our African brothers and sisters?
§ Are they aware of the linkage between these short-sighted policies, their disastrous economic policies, and the eruption of xenophobic attacks earlier this year?
Area 10: The Constitution and '2nd Generation Rights'
Apparently bankrupt of any policies to sell to the electorate, the Shikota group now claim to want to support the '2nd Generation rights' in the constitution. Perhaps they think this vague enough to be safe, especially for their elite constituency.
But when unpacked these 2nd generation, or socio-economic rights, are the very rights which the labour movement and our allies fought for in the constitution, and which the economic policies of this group have consistently frustrated. Rights to health, water, housing, education, social security, among others, have been frustrated by the commodification and privatisation of many of these areas. We therefore ask:
§ Are they going to abandon the economic policies they have promoted, which have effectively denied many of our people access to these basic rights?
§ Will they abandon their opposition to a Basic Income Grant?
§ Will they agree that provision of these services needs to be brought under public ownership?
Area 11: Funding of political parties
COSATU, IDASA and many civil society formations have for many years argued that the political parties should disclose their sources of financial support. The Shikota grouping, formerly in charge of the ANC rejected this demand out of hand. We ask today:
§ Who is bank-rolling the Shikota party?
§ Who has enabled them to afford to put 4000-5000 people in the Sandton Convention Centre?
§ When Shilowa declared recently that "money is not going to be a problem" was he not perhaps relying on endless financial resources from outside the country?
§ What is the interest of those bank-rolling the Shikota party?
§ Is it not their historic mission to defeat the ANC and frustrate the NDR?
Area 12: Managing differences in the Shikota party
As we point out above, the Shikota grouping is led by the people who refused to subject itself to democratic processes. We want to know from them:
§ How will they manage differences in the Shikota party?
§ Will they encourage members to form a breakaway every time there is a difference with the leadership?
We need answers! If they answer all these questions truthfully they will reveal that they have no programme to address the challenges facing the working class - unemployment, poor quality jobs, poverty, inequality and crime. They will offer more of the same policies that have failed to solve these problems. It is an act of people opposed to the pro-worker and pro-poor resolutions from Polokwane, in favour of pro-capitalist and pro-rich policies.
As COSATU President, Sdumo Dlamini, wrote, when declining his invitation to attend the 'national convention':
"Shilowa and Lekota are now forming a political party of the very rich, in Sandton where the poor cannot reach. They want to use the poor to secure their wealth which they have acquired under the banner of the ANC, the banner of the workers and poor of this country. It is nothing about the reasons they state above, and nothing about the Freedom Charter, because if those were the issues they have failed on all of them...
"They never objected when the RDP was thrown out. They are part and parcel of the leadership that demobilised the masses of the country and the ANC itself in the interest of capital. They are today the very people who want to destroy the ANC from the outside, as they have failed to do it internally. These are the comrades who have always insulted people for standing by the decision of the ANC-led Alliance to support its current President."
COSATU is mobilising its 2 million members behind our newly elected ANC leadership and will support them to the hilt as they seek to fulfil the political mandate delivered by the National Conference. As part of this mobilisation, we shall do everything in our power, through democratic and peaceful means, to expose and defeat these phoney democrats and put them in the dustbin of history where they belong.
The ANC will remain a beacon of hope of all our people
Jeff Radebe, ANC Today, 24-30 October 2008
The ANC has been at the helm of the struggle for liberation of our people for close to a century now. In the 96 years of its existence it has left no stone unturned to achieve the unity not only of its members but also of the South African people as a whole. The words of Seme as he made that clarion call on unity amongst the Africans in 1909 still stand today.
The ANC shall continue to strive for the unity of its membership and also of our people to attain the objectives of a united, democratic, non-racial, non-sexist and prosperous South Africa. Those who work against the unity of the ANC for selfish ends have not considered the consequences of such disunity so early in our development before we could even make real certain ends of our historic objectives as adopted in Kliptown during the Congress of the People.
In 96 of its existence the ANC has also had an experience of disagreements and even breakaways in its long history of struggle. The basic characteristic feature of such disagreements and breakaways has been about the demand for change in the policies of the ANC.
In the past 60 years or so, but particularly during and after the Second World War, there was a radical push for the leadership of the ANC to adapt to the changed political landscape both locally and internationally. Inspired largely by the independence of India, this demand for change grew in intensity. The ANC Youth League led by Lembede, Majombozi, Sisulu, Tambo and Mandela, demanded radical change - mass action, mass mobilisation of the people of South Africa, as opposed to the main political activities of the leadership of the time which was characterised by representations, deputations and petitions to the colonial masters and apartheid regime.
This culminated into the watershed 1949 ANC National Conference with the adoption of the Programme of Action, inspired by the ANC Youth League conference resolutions of 1948 and saw the replacement of the conservative leadership of Dr Xuma by Dr Moroka, with Walter Sisulu being the first ANCYL leader of the 1944 generation to occupy a very senior leadership role as ANC Secretary General.
There were unhappy and disgruntled supporters of Dr Xuma who broke away from the ANC and formed the African Minded Group led by Selope Tema. This breakaway was linked to policy change brought by the Programme of Action, and the changes and the direction of the newly elected leadership.
The roaring 1950's saw the emergence of the ANC as a mass movement organising the first national strike in 1950 and followed by the 1952 Defiance Campaign. At this point, the ANC needed to articulate a clear vision as to where we are going as a people and ascertain the correctness of some of the actions being taken.
A call for the Congress of the People saw the adoption of the Freedom Charter in 1955 with a Preamble that proudly proclaimed that; "South Africa belongs to all who live in it, Black and White". This was a profound turning point in the struggle of our people, reinforcing unity beyond all doubt. Some in the ANC disputed this and objected to the Preamble of the Freedom Charter and insisted that South Africa belongs exclusively to Africans. This led to the formation of the Pan Africanist Congress in 1959.
After the Morogoro Conference in 1969 we saw the emergence of the Group of Eight who objected to the Strategy and Tactics of the ANC and the inclusion of non-Africans in the work of the ANC. This led to their expulsion from the ANC. These were not ordinary members of the ANC, but were its top leaders, including Tennyson Makiwane, Ambrose Makiwane and George Mbhele.
Since 1994, our movement has made major strides including:
v The longest economic growth, leading to the creation of a 2-3 million people middle-class.
v Our state-led social distribution programme translated into significant reduction of severe poverty - 12 million receiving social grants
v 2.6 million RDP housing for 13 million people;
v 18.7 million now access water and 10.9 million with sanitation.
Despite all these achievements, unemployment still remains high, many of our people are trapped in poverty, 3-million hectares of land in former Bantustans remain fallow, with increasing migration from rural to urban areas.
There has been serious examination of the past 14 years and the process of policy development led to a policy Conference towards the watershed Polokwane Conference, where unemployment, rural development, food security, food production came to the fore, to address the shortcomings of the last 14 years.
Many people have said that Polokwane represented a pro-poor stance of the ANC and was a cry for accelerated delivery to improve the lives of our people, because we cannot allow the majority of our people left behind as we develop our country.
This is the context that we see Terror Lekota and his dissident group threatening a breakaway. I have mentioned the watershed ANC National Conference of 1949, the adoption of the Freedom Charter in 1955, yet another watershed ANC National Conference at Morogoro in 1969 that adopted the first in the series of the Strategy and Tactics, where the basis of disagreements had been around the direction the ANC was taking, the policies that the ANC had adopted, the change of leadership in many of these instances.
But listening to Lekota and his dissident group, it seems they are at pain to re-assert that they support the policies of the ANC but at the same time, claim that the ANC has veered from its policies or the priorities therein. But they are unable to clarify what are these policy priorities. They complain about the t-shirts and the rude language of Julius Malema. They are also aggrieved by the recall of former President, Comrade Thabo Mbeki.
They know very well that the recall was properly taken at the NEC Meeting -that being the highest decision making body between ANC National Conferences. They should know that the constitutional requirements were adhered to. Former President Mbeki, as a true cadre of the ANC, accepted the decision and resigned, yet Lekota and his group go around saying things in his name, purporting to be aggrieved more than him by his recall, falsely creating the impression that the former ANC President endorses their ill-found mission.
While the t-shirts were never authorised by the ANC, but we nonetheless need to ask these questions: are the issues of these t-shirts more important than the policies of the ANC? Malema does not speak on behalf of the ANC, but is the rude language of Malema more important than improving the lives of our people? Are these issues important more than the challenges facing our people such as unemployment, poverty and inequalities? This looks like the trivialisation of politics.
When Terror Lekota spoke in Port Elizabeth, he stated that the ANC National Working Committee has suspended him without a hearing. Having been the National Chairperson for the past 10 years and being the custodian of ANC policies, he ought to know that the Constitution of the ANC empowers the NWC to impose temporary suspension in exceptional circumstances such as this one.
Clause 25:12(c) of the ANC Constitution, a constitution which Terror was its custodian as ANC Chairperson, states that: "Exceptional circumstances, as determined by the NWC or National Disciplinary Committee or PWC, as the case may be, warrant immediate decision of temporary suspension of a member without eliciting the comment of such member."
From what we hear from their letter, the statements they make in meetings in the Western Cape, Eastern Cape and recently in Limpopo and the Free State, they do not seem to be challenging the ANC policies. They make snipes against the NDR. The NDR is not a swear word nor is it a Marxist or communist term.
We may ask, is the NDR their newfound swear word? Why is it that they who were at the centre of our policy processes now consider the NDR too ideologically laden, hence they make the claim that their new party would be free from such ideological baggage?
When we talk about the NDR in South Africa, we are really talking about a major transformational process. The NDR consists of three words, which carries a lot of meaning in the overall transformation of South Africa as a whole. We dissect the NDR into its composite words:
The "national"
Is the NDR out of date? Has the national project succeeded? Have we accomplished the formation of a single-nation? Have we achieved a national consensus towards a non-racial and non-sexist society? If the answer is no, then we must proceed. In the ANC, we have never embraced the lie that some to swear by today, that building a nation is easy and can simply be accomplished overnight or in a mere 14 years! While ours is a rainbow nation that in line with our constitution must celebrate its rich diversity, nonetheless we must forge for those unifying golden threads in society that give the real impression that we are a united nation, whose integrity we must defend with equal vigour, irrespective of race, gender or ethnicity.
The "democratic"
Are we a full democracy? Have we succeeded in educating our people so that our people should benefit from our democracy? Have all our people accepted the institutions of democracy as sacrosanct basis for the apportioning of rights, privileges, responsibilities, duties and all that accrues from the wealth, development and natural endowment of our country? We have a Constitution, yes, but have we attained all that is contained in the Constitution? Are we all equal beyond the constitutional declaration by the bill of rights? Do our people have required skills to enable decent employment? Are we protecting all our citizens from cradle to grave as it happens in developed democracies?
The "revolution"
Ours is not an evolutionary process, which shall leisurely take 100 years to accomplish. When early leaders of the ANC demanded a vote from the white man, they were told that it took several centuries for Europe to attain universal adult suffrage. One Security advisor of President Carter, Brzezinski, once remarked that Africa was 600 years behind in civilization and that with regards to information technology revolutionary process taking place, Africa is 1,000 years behind. Should we wait for 1,000 years to catch-up with each stage of economic development? If the answer is no, then we need to intensify processes for the attainment of full democracy.
The answer to these questions is that we need to proceed with our National Democratic Revolution! All these three words in "NDR" speak the common language about the need for urgent, concerted and protracted change that requires the unity of our people to make it real into the future.
From what we hear from Lekota and Mbhazima Shilowa, it seems we do not hear substantive policy issues. Recently they asserted that they will strive for constituency based electoral system as opposed to proportional representation simply because they do not want the ANC to have a say on who becomes the President of our country.
This is a direct attack on the integrity and hegemony of the ANC by people who not long ago were at the helm of the very same organisation! Shilowa knows very well we chose this proportional representation system so that all our people benefit. Without it we could have wiped out minorities from our country.
From our observation worldwide on the application of constituency based electoral system, it seems the constituency based electoral systems are applied in largely homogeneous societies - such as those of Britain, New Zealand, Canada and USA. Have we evolved through the NDR to the point that we can claim to have nearly reach homogeneity? The ANC believes in proportional representation precisely because it seeks to take into account the various national groups and demographics of our country.
Terror Lekota and his dissident group also complain that that the ANC is dominated by COSATU and SACP. As long-standing members of the ANC, they ought to know, that the ANC is a universal organisation, the parliament of the people. No one is subjected to fidelity tests. We do not ask whether you are a communist or not. We embrace all who are committed to our strategic vision, the Freedom Charter.
In the ANC Constitution, on being accepted as a new member, one is expected to make the following solemn declaration:
"I ..., solemnly declare that I will abide by the aims and objectives of the African National Congress as set out in the Constitution, the Freedom Charter and other duly adopted policy positions, that I am joining the organisation voluntarily and without motives of material advantage or personal gain.. that [I] will defend the unity and integrity of the organisation and its principles, and combat any tendency towards disruption and factionalism."
Accordingly, in line with their newfound vision, Terror and his dissidents claim that our Secretary General, comrade Gwede Mantashe, cannot hold full-time position as Secretary General of the ANC and Chairperson of the SACP simultaneously, as this undermines the traditions of the ANC. What traditions, we may ask?
JB Marks was both the National Chairperson of the SACP and chairperson of the ANC, chairing the Morogoro Conference of the ANC in 1969. He was also the President of the ANC in the then Transvaal in the 1950s, while being the Chairperson of the SACP.
Duma Nokwe was elected the Secretary General of the ANC in 1958 and he was a leading theoretician of the SACP.
Moses Kotane was the General Secretary of the SACP as well as the longest serving Treasurer General of the ANC.
Furthermore, the ANC has a tradition of deploying its cadres in the broader movement in various capacities. For example, Shilowa himself was deployed to the position of Premier in Gauteng after serving as elected Secretary General of COSATU. His predecessor in COSATU, comrade Jay Naidoo, was also deployed as Minister without Portfolio in our first democratic government.
The last three Secretary Generals of the ANC, Cyril Ramaphosa, Kgalema Motlanthe and the current Secretary General, Gwede Mantashe, were all leading unionists, having been Secretary Generals of the National Union of Mine Workers. What then is the basis for the allegations that COSATU or the communists have hijacked the ANC?
It is very clear that after these watershed events of the 1949 ANC National Conference, the adoption of the Freedom Charter in 1955, the Morogoro Conference in 1969, those breakaways were about policy.
The current group of dissidents, are the least honest amongst those who ever broke-away, which leads one to make reasonable inference, that it is their loss of leadership positions in Polokwane that is behind their actions!
They also complain that the ANC leadership is purging members of the ANC. What purging? Terror Lekota himself was recalled from being Premier in the Free State at a time when comrade Nelson Mandela was still President of the ANC and President of our country. Was it purging?
Many Provincial Executive Committees had been disbanded under the leadership of former ANC Presidents comrades Nelson Mandela and Mbeki. Those included the Eastern Cape, Free State and Gauteng. Were these purging?
Again, it is for this reason that we make the conclusion that this breakaway group is the least honest amongst those who ever left the ANC. This group of dissidents is targeting for recruitment the areas where they know the ANC face genuine organisational challenges.
Comrade Mandela spoke about these challenges in Mafikeng. Comrade Mbeki spoke about these challenges in Stellenbosch and in Polokwane. The then ANC Secretary General, comrade Kgalema Motlanthe, spoke about them elaborately in the Organisational Report to National Conference in Polokwane last year.
The ANC will remain the beacon of hope of all our people. We will continue to strengthen the alliance, which includes the SACP, COSATU and SANCO, as a democratic and revolutionary platform in the mobilisation of all our people. Our success historically, currently and into the future depends on working hand in glove amongst all the alliance partners.
The recent economic summit is part of the convergence building, that is a building block for closer working relations and to bury the mistrusts of the past, while forging ahead with a vision for change that must benefit all our people in line with the Freedom Charter.
Therefore, as we answer the question: why is the ANC where it is today, it becomes self evident that this is essentially the result of hypocrisy of leaders who lost elections in internal party democracy and then went about dishonestly alleging deviation from party principles, tradition and policies. Mine was merely to demonstrate that these claims run contrary to the lived experiences of our organisational history as a movement.
The downfall of Mbeki: The hidden truth
John Pilger, Mail & Guardian, 7 October 2008
The political rupture in South Africa is being presented in the outside world as the personal tragedy and humiliation of one man, Thabo Mbeki. It is reminiscent of the beatification of Nelson Mandela at the death of apartheid.
This is not to diminish the power of personalities, but their importance is often as a distraction from the historical forces they serve and manage. Frantz Fanon had this in mind when, in The Wretched of the Earth, he described the "historic mission" of much of Africa's post-colonial ruling class as "that of intermediary [whose] mission has nothing to do with transforming the nation: it consists, prosaically, of being the transmission line between the nation and a capitalism, rampant though camouflaged".
Mbeki's fall and the collapse of Wall Street are concurrent and related events, as they were predictable. Glimpse back to 1985 when the Johannesburg stock market crashed and the apartheid regime defaulted on its mounting debt and the chieftains of South African capital took fright.
In September that year a group led by Gavin Relly, chair of the Anglo American Corporation, met Oliver Tambo, the ANC president, and other resistance officials in Zambia. Their urgent message was that a "transition" from apartheid to a black-governed liberal democracy was possible only if "order" and "stability" were guaranteed. These were euphemisms for a "free market" state where social justice would not be a priority.
Secret meetings between the ANC and prominent members of the Afrikaner elite followed at a stately home, Mells Park House, in England. The prime movers were those who had underpinned and profited from apartheid -- such as the British mining giant, Consolidated Goldfields, which picked up the bill for the vintage wines and malt whisky scoffed around the fireplace at Mells Park House. Their aim was that of the Pretoria regime -- to split the ANC between the mostly exiled "moderates" they could "do business with" (Tambo and Mbeki and Mandela) and the majority who made up the UDF and were resisting in the townships.
The matter was urgent. When FW de Klerk came to power in 1989, capital was haemorrhaging at such a rate that the country's foreign reserves would barely cover five weeks of imports. Declassified files I have seen in Washington leave little doubt that De Klerk was on notice to rescue capitalism in South Africa. He could not achieve this without a compliant ANC.
Having backed the ANC's pledge to take over the mines and other monopoly industries -- "a change or modification of our views in this regard is inconceivable" -- Nelson Mandela spoke with a different voice on his first triumphant travels abroad. "The ANC," he said in New York, "will reintroduce the market to South Africa". It was as though the deal was that whites would retain economic control in exchange for black majority rule: the "crown of political power" for the "jewel of the South African economy", as Ali Mazrui put it.
When, in 1997, I told Mbeki how a black businessman had described himself as "the ham in a white sandwich", he laughed in agreement, then lauded the "historic compromise", which others were calling a betrayal. But it was De Klerk who was more to the point. I put it to him that he and his fellow whites had got what they wanted and that for the majority the poverty had not changed. "Isn't that the continuation of apartheid by other means?" I asked. Smiling through a cloud of cigarette smoke, he replied: "You must understand, we've achieved a broad consensus on many things now."
Thabo Mbeki's downfall is no more than the downfall of a failed economic system that enriched the few and dumped the poor. The ANC "neoliberals" seemed at times ashamed that South Africa was, in so many ways, a Third-World country. "We seek to establish," said Trevor Manuel, "an environment in which winners flourish." Boasting a deficit so low it had fallen to the level of European economies, he and his fellow "moderates" turned away from the social economy the majority of South Africans desperately wanted and needed. They inhaled the hot air of corporate-speak.
They listened to the World Bank and the IMF and soon they were being invited to the top table at the Davos Economic Forum and to G8 meetings, where their "macroeconomic achievements" were lauded as a model. In 2001 George Soros put it rather more bluntly. "South Africa," he said, "is now in the hands of international capital."
Public services fell in behind privatisation and low inflation presided over low wages and high unemployment, known as "labour flexibility". According to the ANC the wealth generated by a new black business class, the waBenzi, would "trickle down".
The opposite happened. As black capitalists proved they could be every bit as ruthless as their former white masters in labour relations, cronyism and the pursuit of profit, hundreds of thousands of jobs were lost in mergers and "restructuring".
Ordinary people retreated to the "informal economy". Between 1995 and 2000 the majority of South Africans fell deeper into poverty. When the gap between wealthy whites and newly enriched blacks began to close, the gulf between the black "middle class" and the majority widened as never before.
In 1996 the office of the reconstruction and development programme was quietly closed down, marking the end of the ANC's "solemn pledge" and "unbreakable promise". Two years later the United Nations Development Programme described the replacement, Gear, as basically "no different" from the economic strategy of the apartheid regime in the 1980s.
There was something surreal about this. Was this a country of Harvard-trained technocrats breaking open the bubbly at the latest credit rating from Duff & Phelps in New York? Or was it a country of deeply impoverished men, women and children without clean water and sanitation, whose infinite resource was being repressed and wasted yet again?
The questions were an embarrassment as the ANC government endorsed the apartheid regime's agreement to join the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, which effectively surrendered economic independence and repaid the $25-billion of apartheid-era inherited foreign debt. Incredibly, Manuel even allowed South Africa's biggest companies to flee their financial home and set up in London.
Certainly, Mbeki speeded his own political demise with his strictures on HIV/Aids and his famous aloofness and isolation. But it was the premeditated ANC economic and social catastrophe that saw him off.
For further proof look to the United States today and the smoking ruin of the "neoliberalism" model so cherished by the ANC's governors. And beware those successors of Mbeki now claiming that, unlike him, they have the people's interests at heart. And mark if or when they continue the same divisive policies. South Africa deserves better.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) believes that the overwhelming majority of South Africans will see through the so-called 'National Convention' being convened this weekend by a clique of disgruntled former members of the African National Congress (ANC), unable to accept the results of a democratic process.
For the minority of delegates who may be attending this jamboree mistakenly believing that it is a genuine political movement with serious policies, we suggest that you pose some probing questions from the Convention floor. We outline below questions in twelve key areas on which we are convinced the convention organisers have no credible answers.
The "SA National Convention" has only one aim - to divide and disrupt the ANC and its allies, and provide a launching pad to reinstate the discredited agenda which was defeated democratically at Polokwane last year.
They not only have a total contempt for democracy, but insult the intelligence of the vast majority of South Africans, who can see through their transparent ploy. We are convinced that they will fail in this attempt, and we will do all in our power to expose their agenda to the country as a whole.
Its founders speak on behalf of South Africa's rich and powerful, who hate and fear the mass movement which swept their representatives from their positions of power at the ANC's Polokwane Conference in 2007.
But rather than campaign through the democratic structures of the movement to convince the majority of their views, they have opted to form an opposition party, which will soon expose its true colours, as the champion of a small elite in society - a black DA.
They know they cannot defeat the ANC in a straight fight but aim to confuse voters with false, demagogic promises in the hope of cutting its majority and preventing the implementation of the many progressive resolutions passed at Polokwane.
All the gains we have made since 1994 under the ANC government, despite the machinations of Lekota and his ilk, and the progress we still need to make in the next period, will be under threat if we allow this unprincipled gang to gain any credibility.
Ever since its launch in 1985, COSATU has consistently supported the ANC, in the firm belief that it is the only party which has roots deeply embedded in the people, which can genuinely claim to speak for the majority of South Africans and has remained a liberation movement with a bias towards the workers and the poor.
The ANC's historic 2007 Polokwane Conference has strengthened that view. Delegates endorsed COSATU's view that our society remains trapped by the racial, class and gender divisions and inequalities of the past and that the national democratic revolution (NDR) - or the fundamental transformation of apartheid social relations - is far from completed. They sent out a message that our leaders must never lose touch with their mass base or ignore the voice of their constituents.
They also rebelled against many of the undemocratic, top-down, elite-driven practices of the previous leadership, including the misuse of state institutions and the public broadcaster for narrow factional interests, and the growing alien culture of self-enrichment which had led to the abuse by people in government to line their pockets and advance their business interests.
Polokwane rejected the suppression of debate and the ridiculing, labelling and bullying of political opponents as 'ultra leftists' and 'counter revolutionaries'. They revived the movement's traditions of service to the people, without any expectation of material reward.
The convenors of the 'National Convention' on the other hand represent everything that the delegates were protesting against. Their strategy is to turn the clock back, to try and regain what they lost at Polokwane. Yet they try to justify their decision by turning reality on its head, claiming they want to:
§ Defend and strengthen democracy
§ Defend the constitution and institutions of democracy
§ Ensure political tolerance
§ Ensure the rule of law and equality of all before the law
§ Continue to work to entrench non-racial, non-sexist, democratic, prosperous and inclusive South Africa imbibed with the implementation of second-generation rights as enshrined in the Bill of Rights.
This is hypocrisy of the highest order. The public record of these people reveals them to have opposed in practice every one of these principles. That is why COSATU demands that they answer questions on these twelve key areas:
Area 1- Organisational democracy and political tolerance
Leaders of this splinter have claimed to be fighting against undemocratic organisational practices, and promoting political tolerance. But we ask:
§ Why have they refused to accept the democratic process at the ANC's National Conference in Polokwane?
§ Why were Terror Lekota and his allies the most brutal enforcers of the undemocratic practices of the former ANC leadership, through the use of patronage, politics of fear and labelling, and abuse of state institutions?
§ In which ANC Conference, NGC, NEC or branch was GEAR ever discussed before being declared non-negotiable?
§ In which ANC Conference, NGC, NEC or branch was ASGI-SA discussed before being publicly announced?
§ What kind of democracy is it when key policies are imposed from above?
§ Is their real reason for refusing to fight from within the ANC, against what they claim are 'undemocratic practices' post-Polokwane, because the membership have democratically removed them from positions of power?
§ Are they going to reintroduce this undemocratic culture into the party they plan to launch?
Area 2: Policy - in whose interests?
So far, Shikota et al have completely ducked the question of what is the policy basis, if any, for their disagreement with the ANC or the Polokwane Resolutions, and why they have not raised these differences within the ANC. We can only assume, based on their track record, and the elitist agenda they have come to represent, that they will continue to advance their pro-rich and anti-working class platform, which no doubt will be dressed up in quasi-liberal DA-babble. So we must question on economic policy:
§ Is your unhappiness with the ANC, because it has decisively shifted away from the 1996 pro-rich Gear policies, and now wants to move government in a pro-poor direction?
§ Why did you not object when the RDP was abandoned in favour of the neoliberal GEAR strategy which led to massive job losses, poverty and widening inequalities, and left white monopoly capital in the same dominant position as under apartheid?
§ Why did you not oppose privatisation of basic services, which led to retrenchments, higher tariffs and poorer service?
§ Will your party propose a return to the 1996 Gear project which has created such devastation in our country?
On the issue of electoral reform, which is the only policy they have felt safe to talk about, given the interests of their constituency, they have come up with a completely opportunistic and contradictory mixture of ideas. Shilowa now claims to be in favour of a constituency-based electoral system, which he concedes he consistently opposed while he was in the ANC, despite COSATU's long standing campaign for this reform. We ask:
§ Isn't this sudden change pure opportunism, to tap into workers' and the broader public's unhappiness with the current electoral system?
§ Is it all of a sudden because a democratised ANC now has the power to ensure accountability of its MPs to the electoral mandate, as opposed to previously when a clique in government imposed an agenda on them?
§ Linked to this, if they genuinely support the principle of (constituency) accountability by MPs, why are they opposing it for the President, who in terms of our constitution, can be recalled by Parliament or the ruling party?
§ Is it because their leader Cde Mbeki was recalled, or do they want a US-style presidential system in which the President is beholden to rich and powerful interests, and unaccountable to elected representatives of the people?
§ Is accountability selective?
§ Will such policy contradictions be a feature of the new party?
Area 3: Defence of the Freedom Charter
The Shikota group opportunistically claim to support the Freedom Charter, because they know how close it is to the hearts of our people. Yet they are responsible for consistently attempting to drive the movement away from the ideals of the Charter, and have argued that it is a historical document no longer relevant to our times. In fact one of this grouping's key ideologues argued in an Alliance meeting in 2001 that the Charter was outdated and should be abandoned. Therefore they need to answer:
§ Why do they only talk about one clause of the Charter: 'All shall be Equal before the Law' - which as we show below they have violated - but remain silent on the other clauses?
§ Is it because these other clauses are against their class interests?
§ Why are they silent on key clauses, such as 'the people shall govern' (which requires respect for the outcome of democratic processes), 'the people shall share in the country's wealth' (not the wealth shall be owned by a small elite), the land shall be shared amongst those who work it (not appropriated by a few for game lodges and wine farms), and that 'there shall be work and security' (not we shall pursue policies which lead to mass unemployment and hunger)?
Area 4: Rule of law and protecting institutions of democracy
This grouping's support for cronyism, unaccountability and abuse of state institutions to advance narrow political objectives is well known. As recent events, including the Nicholson judgement showed, this extended to abuse of state institutions, including the NPA, to hound and prosecute their political opponents.
The Pikoli, Selebi, Zuma and other episodes show a complete contempt for our democratic institutions, and demonstrates that indeed, all have not been equal before the law. Therefore we need to ask:
§ What makes this group think that we will trust them with our democratic institutions, when they have totally failed to defend them in the past?
§ What have they done, during their term of office, to fight corruption and cronyism?
§ If their party comes to power, will they again support these practices?
Area 5: The arms deal and the SANDF
Two of the main movers in this group are the former Minister of Defence and his Deputy. Yet not once have they stood up against the undemocratic imposition of the arms deal on the country. On the contrary they have defended it. Further they have been guilty of the perpetration of undemocratic and authoritarian practices in the SANDF. So we need to ask those thinking of joining this new grouping if they are happy being led by people:
§ Who have defended the arms deal, and the chief driver of that deal, Thabo Mbeki, in his prosecution of this deal, at all costs;
§ Who, as Ministers, told defence force unions that they were prepared to issue instructions for the army to fire live bullets on workers during the 2007 public sector strike;
§ Who refused to allow the unions in the SANDF their democratic right to affiliate to COSATU;
§ Who dismissed female SANDF members who got pregnant whilst in service;
§ Who, until ordered by a court to change the policy, supported discrimination against security force members living with HIV/AIDS, and defied the court when they ordered the SANDF to stop its acts of discrimination against those living with HIV and AIDS?
Will they support an independent judicial commission of enquiry into the arms deal?
Area 6: Splitting the labour movement
A number of key figures in the Shikota group historically come from the labour movement. In the past they have solemnly committed themselves to advance a fundamental goal of labour - the unification of workers and the creation of one federation in the country. They undertook to do nothing which would divide workers or undermine worker unity. We therefore ask:
§ Why are they now irresponsibly attempting to stoke division in the labour movement, actively undermine union structures, and talking of setting up a federation to oppose COSATU?
§ Is this because they need the electoral muscle of workers, and want to use them as electoral fodder in setting up their black DA?
§ Or is it to weaken workers in the interests of their friends in business?
§ Have they now completely abandoned any pretence of supporting the interests of the workers and the poor?
Area 7: Ethnicity
Figures in this grouping have claimed to oppose what they claim is the promotion of ethnicity in the post-Polokwane leadership, despite all objective evidence to the contrary; and in contrast to the emergence of a worrying ethnic dimension, foreign to our politics, in part fuelled by the undemocratic ethos which crept into the post-1996 ANC. In fact this grouping, more than any other, was associated with ethnic mobilisation, both in the ANC, and the labour movement. Therefore we need to ask:
§ Does this grouping, including Terror Lekota, now distance itself from the ethnic-based mobilisation they promoted in the past in the ANC and labour movement?
§ Should we believe that such unprincipled behaviour will not again be promoted in their new party?
Area 8: HIV/AIDS
Hundreds of thousands of South Africans have died unnecessarily from AIDS, in large part as a result of the denialism of the previous leadership, with which this group is associated. So we ask:
§ Why is it that not a single leader of this Shikota grouping ever spoke out when they were in government against the former President's denial that HIV causes AIDS?
§ Why did they never condemn President Thabo Mbeki when he claimed that he had not know anyone dying of AIDS at a time when government statistics showed that over 900 were dying of AIDS every day?
§ Why did they never raise their voices when the former Minister of Health, Manto Tshabalala Msimang, sent out confusing messages about beetroot and garlic at the time when ANC policy demanded access to antiretrovirals?
§ Why did not a single one of them come to the defence of the former Deputy Minister, Nosizwe Madlala Routledge, when she was fired by the former President for standing up for the health of our people?
§ Can we expect a continuation of this denialism and amoral behaviour when they form their party?
Area 9: Zimbabwe and democracy in the Region
We have all watched in disbelief as the previous leadership in government, of which the Shikota group were part, allowed and even tacitly encouraged, the undemocratic conduct of leaders in the region. In part, it appeared that this support was based on a fear that a successful challenge to authoritarianism in those countries, would lead to a challenge to undemocratic practices in our country.
The hardship, repression and hunger which many of our neighbours have experienced, especially in Zimbabwe and Swaziland, is in no small measure as a result of this policy of 'quiet diplomacy' which the Shikota group supported. We received no support from them for our attempts to mobilise in solidarity with our neighbours. Rather we were subjected to all types of insults and lectures. Therefore we ask:
§ Will they continue to follow this approach of political denialism in the region, and continue to turn a blind eye to the suffering of our African brothers and sisters?
§ Are they aware of the linkage between these short-sighted policies, their disastrous economic policies, and the eruption of xenophobic attacks earlier this year?
Area 10: The Constitution and '2nd Generation Rights'
Apparently bankrupt of any policies to sell to the electorate, the Shikota group now claim to want to support the '2nd Generation rights' in the constitution. Perhaps they think this vague enough to be safe, especially for their elite constituency.
But when unpacked these 2nd generation, or socio-economic rights, are the very rights which the labour movement and our allies fought for in the constitution, and which the economic policies of this group have consistently frustrated. Rights to health, water, housing, education, social security, among others, have been frustrated by the commodification and privatisation of many of these areas. We therefore ask:
§ Are they going to abandon the economic policies they have promoted, which have effectively denied many of our people access to these basic rights?
§ Will they abandon their opposition to a Basic Income Grant?
§ Will they agree that provision of these services needs to be brought under public ownership?
Area 11: Funding of political parties
COSATU, IDASA and many civil society formations have for many years argued that the political parties should disclose their sources of financial support. The Shikota grouping, formerly in charge of the ANC rejected this demand out of hand. We ask today:
§ Who is bank-rolling the Shikota party?
§ Who has enabled them to afford to put 4000-5000 people in the Sandton Convention Centre?
§ When Shilowa declared recently that "money is not going to be a problem" was he not perhaps relying on endless financial resources from outside the country?
§ What is the interest of those bank-rolling the Shikota party?
§ Is it not their historic mission to defeat the ANC and frustrate the NDR?
Area 12: Managing differences in the Shikota party
As we point out above, the Shikota grouping is led by the people who refused to subject itself to democratic processes. We want to know from them:
§ How will they manage differences in the Shikota party?
§ Will they encourage members to form a breakaway every time there is a difference with the leadership?
We need answers! If they answer all these questions truthfully they will reveal that they have no programme to address the challenges facing the working class - unemployment, poor quality jobs, poverty, inequality and crime. They will offer more of the same policies that have failed to solve these problems. It is an act of people opposed to the pro-worker and pro-poor resolutions from Polokwane, in favour of pro-capitalist and pro-rich policies.
As COSATU President, Sdumo Dlamini, wrote, when declining his invitation to attend the 'national convention':
"Shilowa and Lekota are now forming a political party of the very rich, in Sandton where the poor cannot reach. They want to use the poor to secure their wealth which they have acquired under the banner of the ANC, the banner of the workers and poor of this country. It is nothing about the reasons they state above, and nothing about the Freedom Charter, because if those were the issues they have failed on all of them...
"They never objected when the RDP was thrown out. They are part and parcel of the leadership that demobilised the masses of the country and the ANC itself in the interest of capital. They are today the very people who want to destroy the ANC from the outside, as they have failed to do it internally. These are the comrades who have always insulted people for standing by the decision of the ANC-led Alliance to support its current President."
COSATU is mobilising its 2 million members behind our newly elected ANC leadership and will support them to the hilt as they seek to fulfil the political mandate delivered by the National Conference. As part of this mobilisation, we shall do everything in our power, through democratic and peaceful means, to expose and defeat these phoney democrats and put them in the dustbin of history where they belong.
The ANC will remain a beacon of hope of all our people
Jeff Radebe, ANC Today, 24-30 October 2008
The ANC has been at the helm of the struggle for liberation of our people for close to a century now. In the 96 years of its existence it has left no stone unturned to achieve the unity not only of its members but also of the South African people as a whole. The words of Seme as he made that clarion call on unity amongst the Africans in 1909 still stand today.
The ANC shall continue to strive for the unity of its membership and also of our people to attain the objectives of a united, democratic, non-racial, non-sexist and prosperous South Africa. Those who work against the unity of the ANC for selfish ends have not considered the consequences of such disunity so early in our development before we could even make real certain ends of our historic objectives as adopted in Kliptown during the Congress of the People.
In 96 of its existence the ANC has also had an experience of disagreements and even breakaways in its long history of struggle. The basic characteristic feature of such disagreements and breakaways has been about the demand for change in the policies of the ANC.
In the past 60 years or so, but particularly during and after the Second World War, there was a radical push for the leadership of the ANC to adapt to the changed political landscape both locally and internationally. Inspired largely by the independence of India, this demand for change grew in intensity. The ANC Youth League led by Lembede, Majombozi, Sisulu, Tambo and Mandela, demanded radical change - mass action, mass mobilisation of the people of South Africa, as opposed to the main political activities of the leadership of the time which was characterised by representations, deputations and petitions to the colonial masters and apartheid regime.
This culminated into the watershed 1949 ANC National Conference with the adoption of the Programme of Action, inspired by the ANC Youth League conference resolutions of 1948 and saw the replacement of the conservative leadership of Dr Xuma by Dr Moroka, with Walter Sisulu being the first ANCYL leader of the 1944 generation to occupy a very senior leadership role as ANC Secretary General.
There were unhappy and disgruntled supporters of Dr Xuma who broke away from the ANC and formed the African Minded Group led by Selope Tema. This breakaway was linked to policy change brought by the Programme of Action, and the changes and the direction of the newly elected leadership.
The roaring 1950's saw the emergence of the ANC as a mass movement organising the first national strike in 1950 and followed by the 1952 Defiance Campaign. At this point, the ANC needed to articulate a clear vision as to where we are going as a people and ascertain the correctness of some of the actions being taken.
A call for the Congress of the People saw the adoption of the Freedom Charter in 1955 with a Preamble that proudly proclaimed that; "South Africa belongs to all who live in it, Black and White". This was a profound turning point in the struggle of our people, reinforcing unity beyond all doubt. Some in the ANC disputed this and objected to the Preamble of the Freedom Charter and insisted that South Africa belongs exclusively to Africans. This led to the formation of the Pan Africanist Congress in 1959.
After the Morogoro Conference in 1969 we saw the emergence of the Group of Eight who objected to the Strategy and Tactics of the ANC and the inclusion of non-Africans in the work of the ANC. This led to their expulsion from the ANC. These were not ordinary members of the ANC, but were its top leaders, including Tennyson Makiwane, Ambrose Makiwane and George Mbhele.
Since 1994, our movement has made major strides including:
v The longest economic growth, leading to the creation of a 2-3 million people middle-class.
v Our state-led social distribution programme translated into significant reduction of severe poverty - 12 million receiving social grants
v 2.6 million RDP housing for 13 million people;
v 18.7 million now access water and 10.9 million with sanitation.
Despite all these achievements, unemployment still remains high, many of our people are trapped in poverty, 3-million hectares of land in former Bantustans remain fallow, with increasing migration from rural to urban areas.
There has been serious examination of the past 14 years and the process of policy development led to a policy Conference towards the watershed Polokwane Conference, where unemployment, rural development, food security, food production came to the fore, to address the shortcomings of the last 14 years.
Many people have said that Polokwane represented a pro-poor stance of the ANC and was a cry for accelerated delivery to improve the lives of our people, because we cannot allow the majority of our people left behind as we develop our country.
This is the context that we see Terror Lekota and his dissident group threatening a breakaway. I have mentioned the watershed ANC National Conference of 1949, the adoption of the Freedom Charter in 1955, yet another watershed ANC National Conference at Morogoro in 1969 that adopted the first in the series of the Strategy and Tactics, where the basis of disagreements had been around the direction the ANC was taking, the policies that the ANC had adopted, the change of leadership in many of these instances.
But listening to Lekota and his dissident group, it seems they are at pain to re-assert that they support the policies of the ANC but at the same time, claim that the ANC has veered from its policies or the priorities therein. But they are unable to clarify what are these policy priorities. They complain about the t-shirts and the rude language of Julius Malema. They are also aggrieved by the recall of former President, Comrade Thabo Mbeki.
They know very well that the recall was properly taken at the NEC Meeting -that being the highest decision making body between ANC National Conferences. They should know that the constitutional requirements were adhered to. Former President Mbeki, as a true cadre of the ANC, accepted the decision and resigned, yet Lekota and his group go around saying things in his name, purporting to be aggrieved more than him by his recall, falsely creating the impression that the former ANC President endorses their ill-found mission.
While the t-shirts were never authorised by the ANC, but we nonetheless need to ask these questions: are the issues of these t-shirts more important than the policies of the ANC? Malema does not speak on behalf of the ANC, but is the rude language of Malema more important than improving the lives of our people? Are these issues important more than the challenges facing our people such as unemployment, poverty and inequalities? This looks like the trivialisation of politics.
When Terror Lekota spoke in Port Elizabeth, he stated that the ANC National Working Committee has suspended him without a hearing. Having been the National Chairperson for the past 10 years and being the custodian of ANC policies, he ought to know that the Constitution of the ANC empowers the NWC to impose temporary suspension in exceptional circumstances such as this one.
Clause 25:12(c) of the ANC Constitution, a constitution which Terror was its custodian as ANC Chairperson, states that: "Exceptional circumstances, as determined by the NWC or National Disciplinary Committee or PWC, as the case may be, warrant immediate decision of temporary suspension of a member without eliciting the comment of such member."
From what we hear from their letter, the statements they make in meetings in the Western Cape, Eastern Cape and recently in Limpopo and the Free State, they do not seem to be challenging the ANC policies. They make snipes against the NDR. The NDR is not a swear word nor is it a Marxist or communist term.
We may ask, is the NDR their newfound swear word? Why is it that they who were at the centre of our policy processes now consider the NDR too ideologically laden, hence they make the claim that their new party would be free from such ideological baggage?
When we talk about the NDR in South Africa, we are really talking about a major transformational process. The NDR consists of three words, which carries a lot of meaning in the overall transformation of South Africa as a whole. We dissect the NDR into its composite words:
The "national"
Is the NDR out of date? Has the national project succeeded? Have we accomplished the formation of a single-nation? Have we achieved a national consensus towards a non-racial and non-sexist society? If the answer is no, then we must proceed. In the ANC, we have never embraced the lie that some to swear by today, that building a nation is easy and can simply be accomplished overnight or in a mere 14 years! While ours is a rainbow nation that in line with our constitution must celebrate its rich diversity, nonetheless we must forge for those unifying golden threads in society that give the real impression that we are a united nation, whose integrity we must defend with equal vigour, irrespective of race, gender or ethnicity.
The "democratic"
Are we a full democracy? Have we succeeded in educating our people so that our people should benefit from our democracy? Have all our people accepted the institutions of democracy as sacrosanct basis for the apportioning of rights, privileges, responsibilities, duties and all that accrues from the wealth, development and natural endowment of our country? We have a Constitution, yes, but have we attained all that is contained in the Constitution? Are we all equal beyond the constitutional declaration by the bill of rights? Do our people have required skills to enable decent employment? Are we protecting all our citizens from cradle to grave as it happens in developed democracies?
The "revolution"
Ours is not an evolutionary process, which shall leisurely take 100 years to accomplish. When early leaders of the ANC demanded a vote from the white man, they were told that it took several centuries for Europe to attain universal adult suffrage. One Security advisor of President Carter, Brzezinski, once remarked that Africa was 600 years behind in civilization and that with regards to information technology revolutionary process taking place, Africa is 1,000 years behind. Should we wait for 1,000 years to catch-up with each stage of economic development? If the answer is no, then we need to intensify processes for the attainment of full democracy.
The answer to these questions is that we need to proceed with our National Democratic Revolution! All these three words in "NDR" speak the common language about the need for urgent, concerted and protracted change that requires the unity of our people to make it real into the future.
From what we hear from Lekota and Mbhazima Shilowa, it seems we do not hear substantive policy issues. Recently they asserted that they will strive for constituency based electoral system as opposed to proportional representation simply because they do not want the ANC to have a say on who becomes the President of our country.
This is a direct attack on the integrity and hegemony of the ANC by people who not long ago were at the helm of the very same organisation! Shilowa knows very well we chose this proportional representation system so that all our people benefit. Without it we could have wiped out minorities from our country.
From our observation worldwide on the application of constituency based electoral system, it seems the constituency based electoral systems are applied in largely homogeneous societies - such as those of Britain, New Zealand, Canada and USA. Have we evolved through the NDR to the point that we can claim to have nearly reach homogeneity? The ANC believes in proportional representation precisely because it seeks to take into account the various national groups and demographics of our country.
Terror Lekota and his dissident group also complain that that the ANC is dominated by COSATU and SACP. As long-standing members of the ANC, they ought to know, that the ANC is a universal organisation, the parliament of the people. No one is subjected to fidelity tests. We do not ask whether you are a communist or not. We embrace all who are committed to our strategic vision, the Freedom Charter.
In the ANC Constitution, on being accepted as a new member, one is expected to make the following solemn declaration:
"I ..., solemnly declare that I will abide by the aims and objectives of the African National Congress as set out in the Constitution, the Freedom Charter and other duly adopted policy positions, that I am joining the organisation voluntarily and without motives of material advantage or personal gain.. that [I] will defend the unity and integrity of the organisation and its principles, and combat any tendency towards disruption and factionalism."
Accordingly, in line with their newfound vision, Terror and his dissidents claim that our Secretary General, comrade Gwede Mantashe, cannot hold full-time position as Secretary General of the ANC and Chairperson of the SACP simultaneously, as this undermines the traditions of the ANC. What traditions, we may ask?
JB Marks was both the National Chairperson of the SACP and chairperson of the ANC, chairing the Morogoro Conference of the ANC in 1969. He was also the President of the ANC in the then Transvaal in the 1950s, while being the Chairperson of the SACP.
Duma Nokwe was elected the Secretary General of the ANC in 1958 and he was a leading theoretician of the SACP.
Moses Kotane was the General Secretary of the SACP as well as the longest serving Treasurer General of the ANC.
Furthermore, the ANC has a tradition of deploying its cadres in the broader movement in various capacities. For example, Shilowa himself was deployed to the position of Premier in Gauteng after serving as elected Secretary General of COSATU. His predecessor in COSATU, comrade Jay Naidoo, was also deployed as Minister without Portfolio in our first democratic government.
The last three Secretary Generals of the ANC, Cyril Ramaphosa, Kgalema Motlanthe and the current Secretary General, Gwede Mantashe, were all leading unionists, having been Secretary Generals of the National Union of Mine Workers. What then is the basis for the allegations that COSATU or the communists have hijacked the ANC?
It is very clear that after these watershed events of the 1949 ANC National Conference, the adoption of the Freedom Charter in 1955, the Morogoro Conference in 1969, those breakaways were about policy.
The current group of dissidents, are the least honest amongst those who ever broke-away, which leads one to make reasonable inference, that it is their loss of leadership positions in Polokwane that is behind their actions!
They also complain that the ANC leadership is purging members of the ANC. What purging? Terror Lekota himself was recalled from being Premier in the Free State at a time when comrade Nelson Mandela was still President of the ANC and President of our country. Was it purging?
Many Provincial Executive Committees had been disbanded under the leadership of former ANC Presidents comrades Nelson Mandela and Mbeki. Those included the Eastern Cape, Free State and Gauteng. Were these purging?
Again, it is for this reason that we make the conclusion that this breakaway group is the least honest amongst those who ever left the ANC. This group of dissidents is targeting for recruitment the areas where they know the ANC face genuine organisational challenges.
Comrade Mandela spoke about these challenges in Mafikeng. Comrade Mbeki spoke about these challenges in Stellenbosch and in Polokwane. The then ANC Secretary General, comrade Kgalema Motlanthe, spoke about them elaborately in the Organisational Report to National Conference in Polokwane last year.
The ANC will remain the beacon of hope of all our people. We will continue to strengthen the alliance, which includes the SACP, COSATU and SANCO, as a democratic and revolutionary platform in the mobilisation of all our people. Our success historically, currently and into the future depends on working hand in glove amongst all the alliance partners.
The recent economic summit is part of the convergence building, that is a building block for closer working relations and to bury the mistrusts of the past, while forging ahead with a vision for change that must benefit all our people in line with the Freedom Charter.
Therefore, as we answer the question: why is the ANC where it is today, it becomes self evident that this is essentially the result of hypocrisy of leaders who lost elections in internal party democracy and then went about dishonestly alleging deviation from party principles, tradition and policies. Mine was merely to demonstrate that these claims run contrary to the lived experiences of our organisational history as a movement.
The downfall of Mbeki: The hidden truth
John Pilger, Mail & Guardian, 7 October 2008
The political rupture in South Africa is being presented in the outside world as the personal tragedy and humiliation of one man, Thabo Mbeki. It is reminiscent of the beatification of Nelson Mandela at the death of apartheid.
This is not to diminish the power of personalities, but their importance is often as a distraction from the historical forces they serve and manage. Frantz Fanon had this in mind when, in The Wretched of the Earth, he described the "historic mission" of much of Africa's post-colonial ruling class as "that of intermediary [whose] mission has nothing to do with transforming the nation: it consists, prosaically, of being the transmission line between the nation and a capitalism, rampant though camouflaged".
Mbeki's fall and the collapse of Wall Street are concurrent and related events, as they were predictable. Glimpse back to 1985 when the Johannesburg stock market crashed and the apartheid regime defaulted on its mounting debt and the chieftains of South African capital took fright.
In September that year a group led by Gavin Relly, chair of the Anglo American Corporation, met Oliver Tambo, the ANC president, and other resistance officials in Zambia. Their urgent message was that a "transition" from apartheid to a black-governed liberal democracy was possible only if "order" and "stability" were guaranteed. These were euphemisms for a "free market" state where social justice would not be a priority.
Secret meetings between the ANC and prominent members of the Afrikaner elite followed at a stately home, Mells Park House, in England. The prime movers were those who had underpinned and profited from apartheid -- such as the British mining giant, Consolidated Goldfields, which picked up the bill for the vintage wines and malt whisky scoffed around the fireplace at Mells Park House. Their aim was that of the Pretoria regime -- to split the ANC between the mostly exiled "moderates" they could "do business with" (Tambo and Mbeki and Mandela) and the majority who made up the UDF and were resisting in the townships.
The matter was urgent. When FW de Klerk came to power in 1989, capital was haemorrhaging at such a rate that the country's foreign reserves would barely cover five weeks of imports. Declassified files I have seen in Washington leave little doubt that De Klerk was on notice to rescue capitalism in South Africa. He could not achieve this without a compliant ANC.
Having backed the ANC's pledge to take over the mines and other monopoly industries -- "a change or modification of our views in this regard is inconceivable" -- Nelson Mandela spoke with a different voice on his first triumphant travels abroad. "The ANC," he said in New York, "will reintroduce the market to South Africa". It was as though the deal was that whites would retain economic control in exchange for black majority rule: the "crown of political power" for the "jewel of the South African economy", as Ali Mazrui put it.
When, in 1997, I told Mbeki how a black businessman had described himself as "the ham in a white sandwich", he laughed in agreement, then lauded the "historic compromise", which others were calling a betrayal. But it was De Klerk who was more to the point. I put it to him that he and his fellow whites had got what they wanted and that for the majority the poverty had not changed. "Isn't that the continuation of apartheid by other means?" I asked. Smiling through a cloud of cigarette smoke, he replied: "You must understand, we've achieved a broad consensus on many things now."
Thabo Mbeki's downfall is no more than the downfall of a failed economic system that enriched the few and dumped the poor. The ANC "neoliberals" seemed at times ashamed that South Africa was, in so many ways, a Third-World country. "We seek to establish," said Trevor Manuel, "an environment in which winners flourish." Boasting a deficit so low it had fallen to the level of European economies, he and his fellow "moderates" turned away from the social economy the majority of South Africans desperately wanted and needed. They inhaled the hot air of corporate-speak.
They listened to the World Bank and the IMF and soon they were being invited to the top table at the Davos Economic Forum and to G8 meetings, where their "macroeconomic achievements" were lauded as a model. In 2001 George Soros put it rather more bluntly. "South Africa," he said, "is now in the hands of international capital."
Public services fell in behind privatisation and low inflation presided over low wages and high unemployment, known as "labour flexibility". According to the ANC the wealth generated by a new black business class, the waBenzi, would "trickle down".
The opposite happened. As black capitalists proved they could be every bit as ruthless as their former white masters in labour relations, cronyism and the pursuit of profit, hundreds of thousands of jobs were lost in mergers and "restructuring".
Ordinary people retreated to the "informal economy". Between 1995 and 2000 the majority of South Africans fell deeper into poverty. When the gap between wealthy whites and newly enriched blacks began to close, the gulf between the black "middle class" and the majority widened as never before.
In 1996 the office of the reconstruction and development programme was quietly closed down, marking the end of the ANC's "solemn pledge" and "unbreakable promise". Two years later the United Nations Development Programme described the replacement, Gear, as basically "no different" from the economic strategy of the apartheid regime in the 1980s.
There was something surreal about this. Was this a country of Harvard-trained technocrats breaking open the bubbly at the latest credit rating from Duff & Phelps in New York? Or was it a country of deeply impoverished men, women and children without clean water and sanitation, whose infinite resource was being repressed and wasted yet again?
The questions were an embarrassment as the ANC government endorsed the apartheid regime's agreement to join the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, which effectively surrendered economic independence and repaid the $25-billion of apartheid-era inherited foreign debt. Incredibly, Manuel even allowed South Africa's biggest companies to flee their financial home and set up in London.
Certainly, Mbeki speeded his own political demise with his strictures on HIV/Aids and his famous aloofness and isolation. But it was the premeditated ANC economic and social catastrophe that saw him off.
For further proof look to the United States today and the smoking ruin of the "neoliberalism" model so cherished by the ANC's governors. And beware those successors of Mbeki now claiming that, unlike him, they have the people's interests at heart. And mark if or when they continue the same divisive policies. South Africa deserves better.
