Albeit liberation movements have a lifespan of 25 years, the ANC has won more elections than the historic liberation movements in India and Ireland did after their freedom – a comparison based on the multi-party democracy character of all mentioned.
The discomfort, however, comes from the sight of liberation Movements becoming shadows of their former self. Liberators have turned into oppressors and victims into perpetrators. The culture of impunity has become a norm.
What is our downfall? – or perhaps, the shortcomings of revolutionary movements in the present day?
Greater than the question, are the poor and the deprived defending democracy more vigorously than the elite. Discontent with the unfulfilled promises of the regimes, which inherited the colonial state apparatus, too, is a great downfall of revolutionary movements. Perhaps in our context, moreover, there is little to no induction of members into democratic ideas and values and policy positions of the beacon political formation, the African National Congress
Reconstruction of the ANC as a form or renewal or a Fishing Expedition?
The Oxford Dictionary defines the word “Reconstruction” as the act or process of building something that was damaged or destroyed again.
Evidenced by the call for Renewal, The Decade of the Cadre, and Unity, amongst others, the Reconstruction of the ANC comes at an epilogue of the 20-25 years grace that liberation movements have to leverage their struggle credentials. This is a period that sees a collapse in their absolute hegemony. One can argue that the call for Reconstruction is potentially a noble one.
Is the call not a Fishing Expedition, evidenced by our cowardliness to do away with incongruous Lame Ducks groomed in Machiavellian Politics with no relation to morality and continually pollute our democracy with money from those opposed to democracy, arguing that the liberation movement is a prototype of a state within the state, one that sees itself as the only legitimate source of power and that any thought of democracy is nonsensical, creating greedy elites of our leaders?.
Does the Movement no longer enjoy hegemony or is democracy maturing?
The maturing of democracies presents a painful, but necessary conundrum. Those who fought valiantly for our freedom, fearing the catastrophe of authoritarianism, greatly dwelled on the idea of democracy conceivably because they themselves could never have turned away from the values that guided their fighting spirits, or better yet, they never thought of the consequences of democracy.
The perpetual decline and decay of liberation movements have seen opposition formations being strengthened, and not because oppositions differ greatly in policy, but because those liberated in one form or another are disappointed by the limits of the liberation they have experienced, and are looking for substitute saviors.
Moreover, The ANC, up to late 2017, had undergone a process of hegemonic decline that appeared irreversible, with this fact, the vast majority of the country’s population still consented to ANC rule, accepting both the legitimacy of the democratic order and the ANC’s electorally dominant position.
One philosopher, Suttner, finds the greatest solace, or tragedy thereof, are South Africans pinning their hopes on leaders within the ANC coming to their senses and pulling together to get the ruling party back on a trajectory on which it is a force for good. He deliberates, in many of his writings, that the ANC is a party focused on financial transactions rather than a vision to build a democratic country that can generate the economic growth necessary to transform lives, as they voluntarily promised at the advent of the democratic dispensation.
The result of the atrophy is that the importance of the binding foundations and moral capital becomes less immediate and less present in the collective consciousness.
The Congress Movement, like other liberation movements, have been at a refusal to alienate the old-order functionaries, and feasibly, this has informed the prolonged phase of gradual hegemonic decline, occurring on a jagged curve, but with a potential concentrated upward movement – the need to deliver a better life.
If liberation movements were formed to achieve total decolonization and freedom, and though they may not enjoy absolute hegemony, then as the process is incomplete, they need to exist. Even though this is not contested, the multi-party contestations ought to remind us that integrity and democracy are not destinations. They must be lifelong commitments that we ceaselessly strive for.
In this month’s issue
Kgotso Maja writes on Democratic Centralism as an instrument of Unity, Renewal, and Reconstruction and dives into its [Democratic Centralism] earlier formulations, which was necessitated by conditions of factionalism and infiltration in the Party, both in the Soviet Union and in China, and became necessary to centralise decision making, as a mechanism to both take decisions quickly and to close ranks against opportunistic and divisive tendencies.
Lesego Makhubela writes about the struggles of black professionals in the private sector. He argues that the systematic indoctrination of the young and vulnerable becomes accelerated and deepened with their entry into the cradle of gallows both for the black professionals and black students, therefore, the epistemic violence that reign supreme is located at the center of their curriculum and are also at the very core of its social fabric, rendering African knowledge systems non-existent or disregarded and sometimes unworthy of any acknowledgment.
Furthermore, we have also featured an article by Sabelo Ngubeni, who wrote passionately and contested ideas within the mining sector. He writes about the Xolobeni Mining ruling and how it compromises the state. He shares that the idea of consent is known to lack diversity and inclusivity in the representation of stakeholders, because it reflects only the ideas of the elite and powerful in society at the expense of people who experience systematic disadvantages, such as women, youth, and persons with disabilities.
Ntando Khoza writes contests Measuring a Developmental State: return on investment of Human Capital. He argues that the ability to measure will assist a developmental state to best provide solutions where leakages occur and reward institutions or programs and simply copy institutions that provide the best route to return on investment for the state – then the Developmental Agenda will best fit the human capital resources laid with the assessment of fiscal and specific policy formulation.
Furthermore, we honor Sabelo Ngubeni, Secretary of the ANCYL Mxolisi Majombozi Branch, and a great friend of mine, who met his untimely passing on the 20th of February 2021.
The 1947 editorial of “Inkundla ya Bantu” asserted that, “the demand is greatest for trained young men willing to surrender themselves completely to the service of their people”, and Sabelo was that one young man. His passing deprives the African National Congress of its foremost champion in the struggle for emancipation and foot soldier.
We feature an innumerable tribute from the Regional Secretary of the ANC, comrade Dada Moreroa – who dearly loved Sabelo, for his ideas and love for the Congress Movement, to the Regional Spokesperson, comrade Sasabona Manganye who reminds us that Sabelo was part of the generation that understands that the National Democratic Revolution (NDR) is not a class-neutral struggle, but a struggle of the working class in their pursuit of total emancipation from colonial, racial, and class oppression; and that In our country, elements of colonial, racial, and class oppression continue to define an absolute majority of our people, blacks in general, and Africans in particular – He knew that the struggle is not over, and he had an obligation to intensify it.
To his lecture Advocate Neo Mahlako, who reminisces of Sabelo as very economical in what he says but surgical in execution, and tributes from his friends and comrades.
Malibongwe