The contest for municipal elections vote has not only brought to bear the importance of bread and butter issues, but began a process of redefining the balance of power in respect of claims to the struggle legacy. The inalienability of the ANC’s claim over the struggle history has never been put to question since the birth of the Congress of the People like it has been during this period. The liberation movement character of the ANC has for the first time been foregrounded as a national asset instead of it being an exclusive preserve of those who paid the R12 membership fee.
The ANC is Africa’s oldest liberation movement with a nationalist history that influenced almost all movements in the continent. Its agenda has always been the liberation of African people from the clutches of both colonialism and institutionalised racism. These were to be replaced by a South Africa that belongs to all who live in it. The ‘all who live in it’ mantra was to be underpinned by a non-racial and non-sexist democracy guaranteed through regularised, free and fair elections.
The anchorage of national visioning through regularised and election based process of establishing governments has since the 1994 democratic breakthrough redefined the liberation politics landscape. The 1996 Constitution has institutionalised new forms of policy influence such as the Constitutional Court, the Chapter 9 institutions and the centrality of non-state players via the constitutionally entrenched Bill of Rights. The legalisation of community representation through Parliamentary representation took away popular mass based political mobilisation and procured in its stead a formalised party political machinery. Parliament became a site for the incomplete social revolution.
The above policy influence mechanisms gave birth to new human rights activists informed by exigencies of the current rights demands, some of whom have the potential of undermining the very foundations of the South African ‘liberation’ miracle. The move to the political agenda setting centre stage by technical research institutions that have dubbed themselves organs of civil society creates a new theatre for hegemonic contestations between the liberation movement ANC and those that see its continued rule as some representation of defeat.
The registration therefore, of the ANC, as a political party in 1993 made it to become a contestant for government power and thus reducing its liberation movement scope. Having succeeded to position itself as a leader of the liberation struggle, the ANC accepted then that it will be the central conduit for all democracy loving South Africans defined as the ‘people’ in the Freedom Charter. The ANC defined the ‘people’ as all who live in South Africa, thus abrogating rights to claim its legacy to all who supported its noble non-racial vision. Amongst the then ‘people’ there were members of the current opposition parties, more specifically the leader of the DA Helen Zille and that of COPE Terror Lekota.
As a liberation movement the ANC was organised as a social force designed to galvanise all South Africans behind its non-racial vision of which its first sign would be acceptance of universal franchise rights for all. The Freedom Charter, with its broad interpretations and ideological neutrality, represented the ideal for those who supported the quest for a South Africa that embraced it; whence COPE was formed on the basis of it being the real custodian of the Freedom Charter. The need to include all that agreed with this vision was founded around the objective of eradicating Apartheid colonialism; such eradication was variously defined in the private policy prescripts of anti-apartheid coalition members.
The environment within which the Charter was drawn allowed for variants of leadership and Apartheid repudiation approaches that could only be differentiated post ‘the magic democratic breakthrough date’; in this case 27th April 2011. The heroes, martyrs and icons that were produced by the struggle era have been immortalised into collective politico-cultural assets to be used in galvanising support for a now variously defined South African future. The non-racial future envisaged by the ANC may well be the maintenance of the status quo in terms of access to the commanding heights for economic development if the emerging embraces for a future that discounts its Apartheid past as having being determinate to what obtains today.
It is therefore not surprising to observe a growing, and in many ways, legitimate grab of the struggle legacy by any individual who can demonstrate his or her involvement in the broad liberation struggle. Apartheid victims and perpetrators that have gone through an ideological cleansing period can make political choices that are not necessarily ANC but still claim that martyrs also died for them. This state of affairs, unless properly thought through by anchor custodians of the liberation struggle, may polarise society to a level where people may start to infatuated with the ‘old good Apartheid days fiction’ that ignores the scale of responsibility and delivery tradition that worked then.
The nation-building assignment of the ANC as a ruling party can thus never be the same as that of the ANC as a liberation movement committed to undoing centuries of colonial and Apartheid misrule. The ‘flu in the alliance ’, ‘internal party contestations for ideological hegemony’, ‘the emerging nationalist-communist divide’ and ‘the competing interests of political leaders’ within the ANC is further indicative of the shifting base of the ANC as a liberation movement. The positioning of the liberation movement agenda outside the party political obligations of the ANC will go a long way into making it obligatory for contestation for government power to be based on how best each of the contestants can advance the ideals of liberation.
The new liberation trajectory for the ANC is to craft for South Africa an ideological vision that will form the bedrock of a new nation. This requires from the ANC an acceptance that theirs is a path of defining the tracks upon which this democracy has to move; an acceptance that the country is just but a new democracy and not a new state; and an acceptance that what it stood for before 1994 and today has now become an exclusive reserve for all South Africans. A conference of minds operating outside sectarian interests, defined in whatever form, should precede the embrace of this role by the ANC. The time for CODESA 3 may have arrived, all we need is for thinkers, leaders and society to realise that and seize the opportunity; community unrests are symptoms of something fundamentally wrong given the celebrated chronicles for democracy we have devised in recent times.
The ANC is Africa’s oldest liberation movement with a nationalist history that influenced almost all movements in the continent. Its agenda has always been the liberation of African people from the clutches of both colonialism and institutionalised racism. These were to be replaced by a South Africa that belongs to all who live in it. The ‘all who live in it’ mantra was to be underpinned by a non-racial and non-sexist democracy guaranteed through regularised, free and fair elections.
The anchorage of national visioning through regularised and election based process of establishing governments has since the 1994 democratic breakthrough redefined the liberation politics landscape. The 1996 Constitution has institutionalised new forms of policy influence such as the Constitutional Court, the Chapter 9 institutions and the centrality of non-state players via the constitutionally entrenched Bill of Rights. The legalisation of community representation through Parliamentary representation took away popular mass based political mobilisation and procured in its stead a formalised party political machinery. Parliament became a site for the incomplete social revolution.
The above policy influence mechanisms gave birth to new human rights activists informed by exigencies of the current rights demands, some of whom have the potential of undermining the very foundations of the South African ‘liberation’ miracle. The move to the political agenda setting centre stage by technical research institutions that have dubbed themselves organs of civil society creates a new theatre for hegemonic contestations between the liberation movement ANC and those that see its continued rule as some representation of defeat.
The registration therefore, of the ANC, as a political party in 1993 made it to become a contestant for government power and thus reducing its liberation movement scope. Having succeeded to position itself as a leader of the liberation struggle, the ANC accepted then that it will be the central conduit for all democracy loving South Africans defined as the ‘people’ in the Freedom Charter. The ANC defined the ‘people’ as all who live in South Africa, thus abrogating rights to claim its legacy to all who supported its noble non-racial vision. Amongst the then ‘people’ there were members of the current opposition parties, more specifically the leader of the DA Helen Zille and that of COPE Terror Lekota.
As a liberation movement the ANC was organised as a social force designed to galvanise all South Africans behind its non-racial vision of which its first sign would be acceptance of universal franchise rights for all. The Freedom Charter, with its broad interpretations and ideological neutrality, represented the ideal for those who supported the quest for a South Africa that embraced it; whence COPE was formed on the basis of it being the real custodian of the Freedom Charter. The need to include all that agreed with this vision was founded around the objective of eradicating Apartheid colonialism; such eradication was variously defined in the private policy prescripts of anti-apartheid coalition members.
The environment within which the Charter was drawn allowed for variants of leadership and Apartheid repudiation approaches that could only be differentiated post ‘the magic democratic breakthrough date’; in this case 27th April 2011. The heroes, martyrs and icons that were produced by the struggle era have been immortalised into collective politico-cultural assets to be used in galvanising support for a now variously defined South African future. The non-racial future envisaged by the ANC may well be the maintenance of the status quo in terms of access to the commanding heights for economic development if the emerging embraces for a future that discounts its Apartheid past as having being determinate to what obtains today.
It is therefore not surprising to observe a growing, and in many ways, legitimate grab of the struggle legacy by any individual who can demonstrate his or her involvement in the broad liberation struggle. Apartheid victims and perpetrators that have gone through an ideological cleansing period can make political choices that are not necessarily ANC but still claim that martyrs also died for them. This state of affairs, unless properly thought through by anchor custodians of the liberation struggle, may polarise society to a level where people may start to infatuated with the ‘old good Apartheid days fiction’ that ignores the scale of responsibility and delivery tradition that worked then.
The nation-building assignment of the ANC as a ruling party can thus never be the same as that of the ANC as a liberation movement committed to undoing centuries of colonial and Apartheid misrule. The ‘flu in the alliance ’, ‘internal party contestations for ideological hegemony’, ‘the emerging nationalist-communist divide’ and ‘the competing interests of political leaders’ within the ANC is further indicative of the shifting base of the ANC as a liberation movement. The positioning of the liberation movement agenda outside the party political obligations of the ANC will go a long way into making it obligatory for contestation for government power to be based on how best each of the contestants can advance the ideals of liberation.
The new liberation trajectory for the ANC is to craft for South Africa an ideological vision that will form the bedrock of a new nation. This requires from the ANC an acceptance that theirs is a path of defining the tracks upon which this democracy has to move; an acceptance that the country is just but a new democracy and not a new state; and an acceptance that what it stood for before 1994 and today has now become an exclusive reserve for all South Africans. A conference of minds operating outside sectarian interests, defined in whatever form, should precede the embrace of this role by the ANC. The time for CODESA 3 may have arrived, all we need is for thinkers, leaders and society to realise that and seize the opportunity; community unrests are symptoms of something fundamentally wrong given the celebrated chronicles for democracy we have devised in recent times.
In fact it is not only Zille and Lekota who have the right to claim their role in this legacy, we now have a disturbing growing trend of defectors from the ANC who call themselves "Independents". They too will lay a claim to this up 'for grabs legacy'. Thus rendering the cake smaller and if the ANC is not careful, it might find itself in a position worse than the Biblical Samson who lost his hair and power but managed to redeem himself before he died. The ANC on the other hand, might think it still has power only to find that not only has it lost the hair but the hair follicle too which makes it possible for hair to grow again. The ANC may not be as lucky as Samson was. Pasop ANC!
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