For a while, the
idea of being a member of the ANC was ideationally enterprising for scholars,
thinkers, and activists alike. Established by a cohort of mission schools and
foreign universities educated BaNtu Black elites, the ANC's point of departure
was instructive to the intellectualism that undergirded its entire liberation
struggle system. It thus attracted a network of leaders with characteristics
that made them qualify to be referred to as a rare breed of leadership. They
were described as having “emerged from mission schools strongly attached to the
ideals of Christianity, wore Victorian attire, adhered to ubuntu-inspired
cultural values and put much of their faith in what they referred to as a
universal sense of fair play…detached from traditional society, they were
employed as teachers, church ministers, clerks, interpreters and journalists,
and aspired to show how easily Africans could adapt to any human civilisation.
They shared a vision of a non-racial society where merit counted more than
colour. Theoretically dubbed the ‘new black elite, ' they embraced modern
political thinking, behaviour, and practices. They practised and became South
Africa’s first generation of African (non-ethnic) nationalists.
At
the turn of the nineteenth century, the ascent of Africa's thinking about
co-determining a universal democratic future was arguably curated in the
African National Congress. The ANC, whilst construed as a political
organisation or movement, is arguably one of Africa's oldest think tanks on
various human development issues. The discovery of Gold in the late 1800s
attracted millions of Africans to move into South Africa's then-mushrooming
metropolises, making it a convergence point for Southern Africa's most
innovative leaders of that time. The convergence of cultures, religious
persuasions, humans with diverse origins and interests, and ideological
leanings changed how Africans thought about politics and economics, including
the need to be included in any political order. The resultant correlation
between economic development and democracy had the institutionalisation of
African politics into the African National Congress as a formalised voice to
articulate African Claims.
As
nodes of communities from far in the land villages, workers in the growing
metropolises of South Africa became natural distributors of information about
the liberation ideal. Not only did this culminate in a constitution governed
ANC, but it also produced a charter of human rights as early as 1923. Stirrings
of non-racialism, non-sexism, and universality of rights as a prerequisite for being
human were laid down to influence the world—a tradition to proffer alternatives
to what is not wanted to be settled as a value of ANCness. Subsequent leaders
of the ANC would produce monumental documents, most of which their dictum are
found in many African Constitutions, including South Africa's ultimate 1996
adopted Constitution. The African Claims Document, The 1949 Congress League Program
of Action, The 1955 Freedom Charter, The Strategy and Tactics Document, The
Harare Declaration of a Negotiated Settlement in South Africa, The
Constitutional Principles that became the Basic Structure of the Constitution,
and the 1996 Constitution are all culminations of an intellectual tradition
that constitutes the entire struggle system defining ANCness.
Underpinning
this intellectual tradition has been a heritage of being inherently democratic,
horizontal and vertical. Horizontal in how it allowed the diverse ideas to
permeate into its structures and influence it as a broad church of
constituencies wanting a better life for all according to the interests each is
advancing. Vertical in how it kept to how as an organisation, its members would
have to follow its rule and regulations, codes of conduct, and policy
resolutions it takes to optimise its struggle system to meet epochal demands of
society. This feature of ANCness earned it the enviable title of leader of
society. The ideational prowess of the ANC, arguably acute under the leadership
of Oliver Tambo, defined it as one of the most alive global movements against
an abhorrence to humanity, such as Apartheid. First to the Anti-Apartheid
Movement was the Greenpeace Movement. The multilateral approaches that the ANC
utilised to define Apartheid out of humanity and posit in its stead
non-racialism, non-sexism, and democracy have contributed to the correctness of
global institutions and other democracies, arguably America's Barrack Obama and
Kamala Harris moments, being led by men and women based on their human
capabilities and not the colour of their skin.
Craftily
leading a liberation struggle with a mindset of establishing universal human
principles, the Freedom Charter is the foremost instructive document to the
essence of ANCness, the Oliver Tambo-led intellectualism in the ANC guided the
conglomeration of South Africanness which ultimately liquidated the moral
standing of the Apartheid State. Such intellectualism rendered hollow for a
while the material benefits of being an apartheid beneficiary by leading a
cultural and sports boycott that made human excellence a subject with which the
legitimacy of Apartheid could be juxtaposed against. Wherever a non-racial, non-sexist,
and democratic representation of the people of South Africa was required, the
Oliver Tambo-led ANC ensured that it was the only legitimate and recognised
voice. The prowess was ultimately seen in how ANC intellectualism took charge
of masterminding the adoption of conditions for negotiations in multi-lateral
forums of the World. The decision to iconise Nelson Mandela as the face of the
liberation struggle and how he ultimately came to the party in facilitating the
coming together of the Apartheid Establishment and the ANC was a dividend of
the Oliver Tambo ANC we might either be missing, or it is gone.
Whilst
intellectualism delivered the liberation promises through the 1996
Constitution, there is little evidence, if any, that it has delivered economic
liberation unless there was collusion by agreement or fiat that the current
templates of economic domination would be left untouched or to the fate of
other generations. As most influential thinkers of the ANC, again acutely under
the tutelage of OR Tambo, anticipated the establishment of a cult of
democraticness, they paid little attention to what cult of economic freedom
they envisioned unless, again, was collusion or agreement on what currently
obtains. A growing body of young thinkers, most detached from the struggle
system continuum due to unwarranted secrecy about the political settlement, believes
South Africa replaced apartheid capitalism with another 'black voter
legitimised' post-apartheid capitalism operating on the same philosophy of
excluding the majority.
Economically,
and this might either be an indictment of a lack of anticipation by ANC
intellectualism or its outright dearth, South Africa's templates of domination
have not changed sufficiently to meet the corresponding political dividends of
the liberation struggle. With current calibrations of capital ownership,
control of financial capital raising institutions, the legal edifice defining
collateralisation of credit which ignores the truths of history, and a mercantilistic
commercial law regime, South Africa is unlikely to succeed in anchoring a free
market system dominated by private sector firms, unless the current
demographics are accepted as the ideal. The brute truth is that the apartheid
colonial state, led organically by its intellectuals, played a prominent role
in South Africa's powerhouse economy. Commissions of inquiry were established
to generate new policy trajectories and fracture templates of British
Colonialism to establish a South African Republicanism, albeit racist,
unfortunately.
In
the mould of an Oliver Tamboist ANC, which respected intellectualism, and to
avoid this void of thinking within 'formerly constituted' contact with the
community structures of the ANC, a new consensus on economic transformation
within the ANC is now a point of exigency. The ANC should have an honest
conversation on how it will reform the economy, manage its version of state
intervention in the economy, deal with the protection of public resources from
itself, and balance the truths about its cohort of capitalist leaders whose
agenda has not started to be about 'the people'. The growing public anger about
the costs of political freedom to the livelihoods of ordinary people and
concerns of a bulging number of unemployed youth requires serious in-ANC
remodelling of economic thinking, if any exists, save for imports.
However, missing Oliver Tambo's ANC should not be incorrectly read to mean the ANC beyond Oliver Tambo has irreparable systemic challenges. It is a clarion call to reimagine the thrill that came with attending ANC branch meetings, regional workshops before the regional council, provincial workshops that were trusted because regional inputs were sufficiently canvassed and intellectually guided, national consultative processes that found expression even in agendas of shop steward councils of alliance structures. It is the questions that were asked, not instructions given, which made thinking fashionable in the ANC. The notion of conferences of the ANC being called a festival of ideas has origins in this intellectual tradition of the ANC.
While we should accept that Oliver Tambo was fit and proper for his times and mandate, we should not do so without interrogating what defines the fit and properness, if any, of leaders that followed him. On the intellectual traditions OR painstakingly engineered as part of being ANC, the immediate leadership that followed him could not fault the tradition as its concentrates were still dense. It is those that entered the leadership office when the density was thinning, and they did not work at increasing it. The emergence of strange concepts demeaning the tradition was worryingly ignored by those who seemingly benefited from being at the top of an emergent average food chain. The question then is, will the tradition come back, and if it does, what should its character be? As Mama Nomzamo Winnie Mandela would sing at these festivals of ideas... Ibambeni we bafana, lesibam...sa la bafana si nkumbuza u Oliver Tambo. CUT
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