Published in the Sunday Tines on 23 April 2024
The responsibility of liberating a nation from an oppressive system like apartheid remains that of revolutionaries, activists, and conscientious members of society. Naturally, one organisation or institution will emerge as the leader of society in the management of the struggle system, and this is the ANC as the leader of the liberation movement executed. The outcome of the political settlement that follows the liberation struggle tends to be what the liberation movement defined as what it aspires for that particular society.
In
South Africa, the constitution, as the abstraction of the freedoms the struggle
was all about, aggregates the political emotions of those who led and how they
projected into the future. After the negotiated settlement, what was aspired
for became the context of politics, and this made the struggle heritage a
property of South Africa.
"Heritage is an embodiment of a past we wish to take into our
future without losing the benefits of a changing present. It not only defines a
sense of belonging, but it also makes the past a form of the present and an
abstraction of what a future will look like, with us as a presence of the past,
which is the present we are living in now. Like its adjunct tradition, it
creates and reorders our background of permanence. It assists us in
transmitting the merits of the past to modern-day originality. Such a
background anchors the values with which a society can be normed".
However, heritage can also be defeatist and decadent, trapping
institutional vibrancy in absolute attitudes and outmoded --isms. The currency
it uses to defeat a society is nostalgia and, at best, mythology. Because of
its sacred character, it is often a difficult thing to challenge heritage,
albeit having flaws and weaknesses". The ANC's fight for the rich history
of MK the MK Party is 'smash and grabbing', as well as the tenacity with which
the MK Party founders are battling for the retention of the name is the core of
determining how the ANC might disintegrate as a liberation movement and remain
with a political party status emptied shell.
As
the heritage landscape of the country is redefined or expanded to be inclusive,
it ceases to be a tribal (political or otherwise) matter. In Samora Machel's
parlance, beyond the liberation struggle settlement and in peacetime, it might
be necessary for several tribes or a particular tribe to die for the nation or
heritage to thrive. The concept of a country's national self cannot be allowed
to be the exclusive domain of majority tribes but must transcend sectarian
preferences.
The
contest for who has the right to the use of Congress of the People, uMkhonto we
Sizwe, and maybe in the next elections Congress of Democrats and United
Democratic Front is a reflection of how heritage as a collective social capital
of society has not received the attention it deserves. Social Cohesion and
Economic prosperity of nations rests upon knowledge and its practical
application. South Africa's contested heritage, with race and class as its
vector of analysis, has choked its celebration because, in its divided form and
not diverse character, defines the nature of our politics.
Except
for the political capital costs to the governing party, the court case has
exposed the depth of legal sophistication in the current political elite. The
MK Party victory, from whatever angle you choose to relate with it, is the
subversion of RSA heritage trapped in the ANC's history and traditions. It
might be the beginning of a heritage genocide and struggle traditions cleansing
process where factual distortions of history might be recorded as litigation-discovered
documents.
In
the middle of a growing discontent amongst voters taking Zuma to court on the
MK trademark issue, after losing eligibility to stand case, he dialled up the
heat on his support base, including the reluctant. The MK Party victory, which
creates a precedent of future legal heists of heritage resources, especially
names, rings hollow. It is, at best, as short-term as the earlier COPE victory,
but it doesn’t mark a breakthrough or come close to resolving the real
contentious issues of South Africa's heritage.
Regarding
intellectual property, trademarks, and copyrights, RSA has been found wanting
on several occasions. From the Rooibos global trademark debacle, the Port and
Sherry remonstrations in the wine and spirits industry to the costs of
reclaiming the use of Bafana Bafana, RSA displays a country whose legal claim
to its heritage is at risk. The bottom line implications of this debacle are
that it exposes in-ANC thinkers, intellectuals, and those working in its
cognitive spaces. The disrespect of heritage resources also manifests in how
factional convenience and expediency can destroy institutions of economic
leadership such as Transnet, PRASA, Denel, SAA, and other state-owned
entities.
Reminiscent
of a hyena hunt, the battle for the MK name is a graphic representation of how
we might have ended where we are; everyone is now cutting his piece of the
potential carcass the ANC heritage might be. Terror Lekota took the Kliptown
slice, Julius Malema left with the generational mission of Economic Freedom in
Our Lifetime of the ANC youth league, and Zuma joined the uMkhonto we Sizwe
raid. The South African Constitution did not raid the National Democratic
Revolution; it is its legal expression. The question is, what would be left of
the ANC in the long run, given that it has not been deliberately redefining
itself into the context where what it stood for has been bequeathed to the
nation by history?
As
new generations of leaders come through the ranks, with Tintswaloes just
fifteen years away from being a dominant force in its leadership, logic
dictates what will they bring into that centre? The slicing off of the MK
heritage, all be it legally won, requires an ideological response more than the
current 'asilweni' posture. MK Party might be one of the most lethal
intergenerational blows to the ANC after its denial that firing Malema was a youth
power cleansing it cannot recover from.
Of
course, in such contexts, we should be fully and constantly aware of the
dreadful forms that institutional self-mutilation can assume and be careful to
guard against its impact on our path as a people to establish a National
Democratic Society. Outside these political fights, as a society, we can be, or
can provide, the institutional structures and patterns of agency necessary for
working out a version of ourselves the constitution guarantees us. The
ideational mortality of our democratic order depends on us. CUT!!!
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