There is no sign that the renewal and rebuilding program of the 'leader of society brigade' within the broader membership of the ANC is slowing down. This is despite the liberation struggle nostalgia-dependent and 'putting-the-ANC-in-disrepute-filled' cohort of members fighting back with pedestrian rhetoric. Notable in their strategy is the focus on pre-1994 profiling of candidates outside what the ANC needs to be beyond its 55th Conference. The leadership demands of South Africa's unfolding constitutional democratic order do not seem to have featured as fundamental criteria in the nomination of some leaders to serve in the NEC of the ANC.
While the country is still bleeding from the political, social, and reputational wreckage caused by revelations of the Zondo Commission submissions and evidence leading, there is an attempt to bracket some of the ANC reputation-destroying truths about individuals contesting for leadership. This presents to society an impression that some of the ANCs worst are the best the liberation movement can put forward as its leaders. Ignoring the context that the ANC has the responsibility to lead society beyond its gatekeeping populist criteria to nominate leaders is now fashionable. The audacity to invoke struggle history to airbrush the questionable conduct of nominated individuals is worrisome. The exigencies of service delivery to South Africans, and fortunately some members of the ANC are noticing, are mobilising one of the most indispensable in-ANC movements; 'the leader of society brigade' (LSB).
The LSB is a movement of intellectually savvy, constitutional democratic order-led, capability-driven, and ethicalness pursuing ANC members committed to their imagination of a South Africa promised by its Constitution. They are mainly straight-talking and proffer 'dissenting theoretical positions that have mostly been interpreted as diverging from the schematic revolutionary dogma of self-proclaimed prophets of ANC dogma and paranoid tendencies of nostalgic members'. They have thus far endured attacks of being classified as nascent black bourgeoisie or clever blacks, yet did not succumb to the temptation of joining the opposition complex, even if it dangled higher political career prospects.
To this brigade, the systems of operating the ANC as a leader of society they are committed to its objects is untenable and should be overhauled, and new templates of influence set up. It should not be assumed that they do not have class interests out of how society is led, save to say that fundamental to their interests is the creation of space for their imagination of South Africa to thrive. They want to assert the essential rationality of the emerging outcomes from their influence. The moral and political economy reasons for their quest to advance to the centre of the ANC instruct their purpose and objectives.
Trapped in the transition phase of integrating the 'Political Freedom in Our Lifetime' gains of the founding fathers of South Africa's constitutional democratic order, and the 'Economic Freedom in Our Lifetime' mission of the democratic order beneficiary generation, this brigade is tying itself to the central participation of capable ANC cadres that will deliver the in-Constitution-Liberation promise to South Africans.
They believe that when competent and service delivery battle-tested 'leader of society' cadres are on the frontline of leading the ANC, as the dominant political movement of South Africa, cognitively prepared and ready members of society have a higher chance of succeeding in the facilitation of processes to achieve an egalitarian constitutional democratic order. The 'leader of society brigade', when harnessed to its full potential by the contested political and social capital inherent in the ANC, is a constant and real threat to 'a government-is-the-economy' cohort of members that have been at variance with the member integrity management systems the ANC designed to be consistent with the ethicalness demanded by the liberation promise entrenched in the Constitution.
The strategic posture to position those defined by the constitutional democratic order as its ethical threats as victims of an otherwise human rights-based adjudication system has blurred the correctness of the cause to establish a South Africa based on the values of the Constitution than that of personal aggrandisement, greed and any form of crass. Tired of being the silent majority overwhelmed by the majority of unethical noises by a minority within the ANC, this brigade's organising prowess and courage to move to the centre make it ready to rebuild the liberation movement as a centre that holds. While this brigade might be the ANCs hope to return to its leader of society status, the pedestrianised discourse on how the 55th Conference should select leadership might set it back to levels where it can only breathe in the civil society oppositional complex; and maybe lead society from there.
With the Ramaphosa dividend of removing from within the ANC fear to call corruption and any form of crass by its name, the index of embracing more anti-corruption rhetoric as part of the ANC's politics has increased to levels where those defending are suffocating. Pity for the nation, the PhalaPhala saga, true or otherwise, has given the putting-the-ANC-into-disrepute brigade cadence and momentum. In fact, there is a belief amongst them that they can retrofit the corruption stench into the leadership canvass, and expect criteria to be about who is the better of those at variance with the ANCs integrity management system.
As we advance towards the 55th Conference, we must have heightened discernment of who will ascend and lead us. The leader of society brigade has flooded the nomination list space. ANC members are potentially spoilt for choice in that regard. Yes, the politics of the ANC have gone overdrive in being more about party politics and reduced to lower shelves its liberation movement character. Interests of those that can fund campaigns are becoming the new currency of ANC politics. The ability of ANC members to be auctioned for the betterment of society might be the contemporary discourse ANCness might want to urgently consider. The brute truth is that nefarious interests might have the best funding, and to decry funding capacity independent of what it represents might be the most dangerous of abdications to the leader of society role ANC members have.
The greatest book ever written to guide humanity on many issues teaches how mammon can be redeployed for the betterment of humankind. Mammon is the biblical term for riches, often used to describe the debasing influence of material wealth. If mammon has entered the ANC as the proverbial church, its priesthood must be about how to redirect the purposes of mammon and strip it of its growing god-like character. The growing worship of mammon by its members must be put through a path where its greatest salvation is funded by the very mammon.
There is, therefore, a need to evaluate would-be leaders for who they are to the nation's future, as much as what they have been to the past which our future does not need. What shaped cadres might not be necessary for what our future needs, we must be able to say 'up to thus far thank you'. The anti-apartheid struggle was not a licensing process for those that participated to be leaders of society. The default courage shown during that era should be recognised and harnessed to where it can be best utilised for the betterment of society, and those skills that might have been a means to the struggle ends, and yet undesirable for lawful livelihoods must be put through a rehabilitation process, if not subjected to the country's penal system. Acknowledgement of this truth about some members of the ANC should be open so as to encourage them to volunteer for professional help and rehabilitation
As the heat towards the conference rise, rhetoric might introduce criteria to lead which might throw into the pool persons whose skills will be perpetually at variance with the demands of South Africa's sophisticated economy. We must be vigilant to a truism that 'those that might be presented as having been missing in action, when the ethically discredited were visible, might have been in action at spaces where the preparation of cadres for the current phase of the national democratic struggle was the focus. CUT!!!
✊🏽The leader of society brigade is rising
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