The th!nc Foundation

In the last few weeks South Africa has been experiencing an episode that threatens to redefine the ANC from its earned status as a leader of society, to a eremite institution characterised by corruption and factionalism. The State Capture Commission has become a new theatre within which scenes, acts and dramatizations of the ANC’s 'apparent' loss of strategic, moral and ideational leadership is on display and/or played out to the world. Given that the ANC is arguably at the centre of all political life in South Africa, the 'emerging' labelling of the ANC and ANCness as a growing example of what a liberation-movement-cum-ruling-party should not degenerate into, presents a number of questions about the growth and sustainability of the South African democratic experiment. The ruling party status of the ANC makes the state an arena within which its operations will always be evaluated and projected as defining to politics the South African way. Its political methods, parti...

African Nationalist movements have created modern day African states, and citizens of these states are in one way or the other turning against these movements, or what they have turned out to represent. In creating these states the movements etched their state formation paradigms on a nationalist outlook restrained by ideologies whose origins are non-African. The originative-historical-context instructing to these ideologies has a concept of sovereignty that ends at the south-most tip of mainland Europe. It has thus only been liberalism, socialism and communism, or any other -ism if it is ideationalized within a context that super ordinates whence from it was first labelled.   In South Africa, the African National Congress (ANC) and/or ANCness sustained a struggle system that got formalized in 1912 when it was formed. This system  registered a negotiated political democratic breakthrough in 1994. The breakthrough is, and unfortunately so, still choked by a stubborn ...

South Africa has been experiencing a series of tensions that may be eating on its social fabric. This is due to the continued use of demeaning vocabulary aimed at a section of its people that were called ‘kaffirs’. Whilst the use of ‘kaffir’ is an abhorrence to humanity, it would seem its use has now assumed a particular role. It is also noteworthy to observe how emotionally charged   the response of society, and policy makers in particular, has been to this phenomenon and/or practice. But emotional policy response alone has not been enough, a social justice anchored response to the real and underlying issues is necessary. This article will argue that, the use of the 'kaffir' word is in fact a form of power display on the human civilization theatre designed to sustain a continuum of subjugation. The disintegration of formal, legal and economic apartheid since 1994 has still not dealt with racism as a manifestation of apartheid power over its primar...

A BEQUEATHED FREEDOM CHARTER AS THE SOUL OF THE NATION   The cohesion of a nation is always found in what is defined as its soul. Successful nations and democracies were and still are able to weather most storms as a result of their reliance on what defines them, rather than what they materially possess. It is in the definition of a nation’s soul that it can derive its norms and values. The norms and values that are detached from a nation’s soul have a tendency to reduce nations to demagogue worshippers thus breeding dictatorships of various kinds. A soul of a nation is a natural departure point to lay a basis for that nation’s definition. A national soul can be defined as self-awareness, or consciousness, unique to a particular society and is construed as being distinct from its inhabitants and can survive the death of generations and propel the birth of new ones . A national soul should therefore be a true basis for its consciousness and should be immortal in all conceivabl...

THE AFRICAN NATIONAL CONGRESS AND NATION BUILDING The African National Congress, arguably one of the key nexus of a nation-building assignment for South Africa, has over its history been at considerable pains to define a national vision acceptable to all. The general moral high ground it occupies or rather occupied, and more specifically among its supporters, for being the first organised political entity in South Africa to embrace and fight that; South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white, and that no government can justly claim authority unless it is based on the will of all the people; South Africa will never be prosperous or free until all its people live in brotherhood, enjoying equal rights and opportunities; and only a democratic state, based on the will of all the people, can secure to all their birthright without distinction of colour, race, sex or belief (Freedom Charter 1955);   positions it as a naturally critical, though not exclusive, custodian of...