As part of its renewal program, the ANC has established a facility where its members can come together and participate in a course that repositions the ANC at the center of South African history. The course serves as an intervention to clarify the misconceptions, misinterpretations, and narratives surrounding what the ANC represents as an organisation, a liberation movement, and a societal leader. Attendance is compulsory for all members, as it is critical to being recognised as a member in good standing.
The Foundation Program bridges gaps of history and addresses key challenges. These include the reluctance to teach ANC history for fear of electioneering, and the sidelining of liberation history in schools. It re-emphasises African liberation struggle history as a core element of the broader context of all history regarding South Africa. This will go a long way to clear the confusion surrounding the raw experiences of the liberation promises the ANC bequeathed to South African society.
The course is designed
for all ANC members at every level. It assumes that participants are
familiar with the movement, which will enhance and enrich the process of
renewal and rebuilding. The 'each one teach one' spirit that permeates the
course creates opportunities for reflection on where the ANC has been, where it
should be, and where it could be in the future. For many, it has been a
rediscovery of purpose as members of the ANC.
Learning from the
veterans and stalwarts of the ANC, most of whom participate in the program as
both attendees and resource people, is one method to ensure the transfer of
liberation struggle experience and transition ANC membership to a post-conflict
context essential for the country's development. The deployment of veterans to
co-attend with all members is commendable. The Foundation Program seeks to
clarify the distinction between a purely liberation movement ANC and a hybrid
one that functions as a political party. The program integrates the
challenges of contesting political power while maintaining its liberation
movement identity throughout its content.
The modules' flow guides members through the ANC's history, highlighting the monumental documents that have shaped the ANC's theory of change and ideological
framework. Throughout its history, the ANC has been, and potentially still is,
the only organisation capable of defining a vision for the RSA; no other organisation
has achieved this. These documents must be distributed to members to inform
them of the movement's origins.
At a pivotal moment in
its history, the ANC defined the National Democratic Revolution (NDR) as a
process aimed at transferring power to the people, making the struggle
fundamentally about people’s power. The ANC asserts that this power is
political, economic, and social in nature. The objectives of the NDR, which
today permeate the fabric of being South African and are outlined in the
Vision, Values, and Principles module, include non-racialism, non-sexism,
democracy, unity, and a prosperous society. The South African Constitution
of 1996 serves as the legal mandate for all citizens to implement the National
Development Revolution (NDR).
The foundation program
guides new members of the ANC, particularly those from the post-CODESA and
Nelson Mandela generation, also known as the Tintswaloes, through a narrative
of the past narrated by some of its architects. It encourages this group of ANC
members to empathise with past generations by viewing the ANC through their
perspectives, thereby comprehending the motivations behind their decisions and
actions. Only then can they adapt to the present.
The modules of the
Foundation Course, as posited by the OR Tambo School, will be continually
updated and presented to various sectors. This ensures that members, who are
professionals, interact with the module as part of professional groupings. In
this manner, the ANC will not need to deploy personnel, as it will already have
numerous professionals who have completed its rigorous program with a distinct
interpretation of the content. The movement should envision a foundation course
that guides discipline-specific individuals through the module, shaping how ANC
members relate to its content in their daily tasks.
It is essential to recognise
that the Foundation Course is enlightening and will empower those seeking to
challenge the ignorance of ANC members. This should be sufficient reason to
establish the Political Education Training Units as ex-officio structures of
the ANC. Their creation should transcend any limitations that structural
constraints may impose on their transformative interventions. Renewal, inherent in the foundation course, does not adhere to established hierarchies
that necessitate intervention.
Having completed the course and actively participated in Tshwane's PETU, I recognise how much more many like me still need to learn. I now see myself as a thread in the larger tapestry of ANCness—connected to the past, present, and future of the movement. This journey of discovery affirms the urgent need to institutionalise Political Education Training Units as vital engines of renewal, transcending hierarchy and bureaucracy. The Foundation Course is not just a curriculum—it is a compass guiding us back to our revolutionary core.
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