The th!nc Foundation

In his 08 January 2012 President Jacob Zuma spoke of an ANC that has been born out of a call for unity in diversity. In the same speech the President dealt with the heroic anti-colonial and later anti-apartheid struggle the ANC has waged against both a distant and a resident coloniser. The narrative remains authoritative in the ANC’s scheme of historical events and should be lauded, as has been, by South Africans. The position of the ANC as leader of the liberation movement is thus inscribed unto the tombs of South Africa’s history.  The movement’s ability to galvanise broad support for its course beyond racial and sexist lines towers its 100 year story thus far. The flexibility with which the ANC was able to adapt its policy trajectory to be in line with the dictates of history got crowned by its adoption of what would otherwise have become a document of democrats irrespective of political affiliation, the Freedom Charter. The charter’s declaration that ‘South Africa belongs to a...

In one of his seminal speeches Martin Luther King Jnr warns society that “in the end, we will remember not the words (or noises) of our enemies, but the silences of our friends”. The ascendance of Mr Julius Malema to what is arguably the most powerful position to be held by a young adult in South Africa has attracted noises and silences that only history will tell of their animosity or friendliness. In whatever manner the answer turns out to be, Mr Malema has entrenched himself as both a legitimate leader of a sizeable section of South Africa’s youth and a political phenomenon available for intellectual inquest. As a youth leader Mr Malema represented the biggest organised youth constituency in the developing world. According to the ANCYL conference attendance procedures, every delegate that graced the conference in a representative capacity commanded 50 registered members of the Youth League. The conference has been reported to have had 5300 delegates; this translates to 265 000 memb...