Written on the occasion of the 2017 January 8 Statement)

Many will travel to East London for the ANC’s 08 January statement with a wrong understanding that it is an extension of the festive season, a big humdinger of bash and the media will as it has always done, deride it as an event of fat cats meeting to display their wealth. The media will be brutal in painting this important calendar date as a festival of crass materialism and conspicuous consumption. Of course, all these negative narratives are aimed at sectionally demobilizing society against the ANC. But the reality is that even ANC members in their numbers have forgotten the meaning of this celebration which many people were imprisoned and killed for. It has lost meaning like many of the important holidays we celebrate. I felt that I should write this article to in brief discuss the meaning of this important ANC calendar date, to invoke the sacredness and gratitude to which we need to observe it.

The ANC’s birthday on 08 January is and has always been an important annual event. Every year, the National Executive Committee releases a statement to take stock of its position, to give thanks for past support, to pay homage to the comrades who died, to award best-performing branches, to recognize best-performing structures in its leagues, to articulate its vision for the forthcoming months, to expound in simple terms the political dynamics in the country and to articulate its understanding of the international balance of forces. Echoing Chinese tradition, to proclaim a theme for the year. During the apartheid era, the statement was released through the ANC president Oliver Tambo and it became a galvanizing yearly highlight, linking its members in exile, Robben Island, around the world with the activist and supporters in South Africa

I read that the tradition began in 1972 on the occasion of the organization’s sixtieth birthday, this was a once-off event and it suffered a six-year hiatus as the ANC reconstituted itself in Exile. Then rejuvenated by the student uprisings, the opening up of front line states, and the beginning of MK’s low key guerrilla insurgency, the tradition was resumed in 1979, which the National Executive Committee declared as “ The year of the Spear” in recognition of the central role played by the people’s weapon, the spear (Umkhonto We Sizwe, Lerumo la Sechaba).

Radio Freedom was an ideal platform for the ANC’s 08 January statement or address. Although the radio fizzled out after its 1963 launch and the Rivonia arrests, it began to play an important role in the 1970s and 80’s in connecting the ANC leadership in exile and its supporters back home. At its height, radio Freedom aired daily in 5 countries: Angola, Zambia, Ethiopia, Madagascar, and Tanzania. The shows, typically half an hour in length, consisted of a mix of news, music (freedom songs that were banned in SA), and commentary.

To ensure a wider reach, copies of the 8 January Statement were distributed through very sophisticated underground networks to spread the NEC’s message and raise the morale of the oppressed population. I also read somewhere in the archives of our history that operatives used time-delay rockets to release showers of leaflets with ANC January 08 statement.

There is also a story of a certain man from Soweto by the name of Sipho who described himself as a “human radio” because of his daily habit of word by word content of radio freedom broadcasts on his daily train journeys. Thousands of copies would flood the streets of townships shortly after the event each year. In 1980, after funding from Swedish organizations, 4000 cassette recordings of the 8 January statement were snuck in, shortly followed by another 4000 tapes with liberation messages.

The 8 January statement was a dangerous speech – not least because of its incendiary nature but also because possession of recordings or copies of it could land one in prison for up to 8 years. Despite defense attempts that possessing the material didn’t amount to activism, in 1983 Thabo Moloi was sentenced to two years imprisonment when he was found in possession of a cassette with one of Tambo’s 8 January statement. In 1985 a 21-year-old Edward Ngobeni was given four years for playing the 8 January statement to his friends. Many others who were found in possession of this material were arrested and convicted.

By the mid-1980s, the 8 January tradition was firmly established, clearly, this depicts and makes a bold message that most of the traditions and cultures of the ANC are established over a period of time such as the emotionally charged debate of the deputy president succeeding the president which has now also firmly established itself as the tradition of the movement. As opposition to apartheid swelled abroad, information deprived South Africans were hungry for guidance from their leaders in exile. This important message became guidance and source of enlightenment to the information deprived masses.

In 1978 a high-level delegation of the leadership of the SACP and that of the ANC visited Vietnam and found inspiration in General Vo Nguyen Giap’s description of the country’s struggle against the US, particularly regarding the synergy between mass struggle, the underground, and the army in pursuit of revolutionary aims. This delegation was also impressed by how the Vietnam revolution had secured the full participation of the population in the fight against the enemy, thus collapsing the categories of combatant and non-combatant. The visit sparked a new approach to the struggle against apartheid and over the next few years the leadership developed a comprehensive new strategy informed by the Vietnamese revolution termed “The Four Pillars of the Revolution”. This was announced and explained in the 1984 January statement in which the President proclaimed as “The year of the Women”. It was in this 08 January statement that Tambo made the call to “make the country ungovernable and apartheid unworkable”.

Having expounded the meaning of this important day, there is no doubt that the 08 January 2017 NEC statement to be delivered by the newly elected president of the ANC Cde Cyril Matamela Ramaphosa must address the following questions and deep worries of our people who must be swayed from using the white-owned liberal media as their only source of information and to analyze the political and economic dynamics of this country through the lenses of racist biased media.

The questions the statement ought to respond to are as follows

1. How is the ANC going to implement FREE Tertiary Education in the next few days starting with registrations that are underway at
2. How is the ANC going to expropriate land without compensation?
3. How is the ANC going to improve the state of the economy and how it will create jobs?
4. How will the newly elected NEC manage the transition between the outgoing ANC president and the newly elected president of the ANC and how will this affect the functionality of
5. The ANC would also need to explain if it’s still committed to liquidating labour
6. The ANC would need to explain to the masses of our people what is its plan towards the effects of the 4th Industrial
7. The ANC would also need to explain to the general population the international balance of forces and edify South Africans the implications of being part of BRICS its a tall order I know but this is what the 08 January Statement in East London must respond to.