As far as a vision for South Africa is concerned, some would say that, considering the ANC is the ruling party, their vision equates South Africa’s current socio-economic and political condition as an assessment of their ability to execute on its achievement. Others would counter, stating that vision takes an unforeseeable amount of work and time to have materialize; so, if we have not yet arrived at the ‘promised land’, more still must be done before the future the ANC aims to bring to us is to materialize.
Every other party talks about what they intend to do when/if they ever rule government thus the term ‘vision’ is better fitting to them. The ANC, on the other hand, has, so far, had just over 20 years implementing its vision thus I would argue that the term ‘mission’: vision in practice, better befits them. This is evident in the many legislations promulgated by a parliament dominated and thus led by them: in this case, a land reform strategy guided by the constitution – aiming for a society based on the principle of universal equity for all its citizens.
I will not deal with that strategy in detail here as I have/will be doing so when discussing the rest of the parliamentary parties since, as stated above, their positions on land reform are relative to the only one currently being implemented – that of the ANC-led parliament thus government. However, I will be exploring the ANC’s founding ethos: what it stands for as that relates to its strategy on land reform. The question I am putting forward, for you to answer to yourself, here, is: considering the party’s founding principles and those it ‘claims’ to espouse today, has it veered off its righteous path?
“The good news is nigga you came a long way, The bad news is nigga you went the wrong way”
– Jay Cole, 2014, Love Yourz
Formed in 1912 as an answer to a cry for unity among Africans by Pixley ka Isaka, the ANC was born as a shield to protect and a weapon to fight against the abuse of Africans’ rights and freedoms by Afrikaner nationalism. 1944 brought with it a child of the party – the ANC’s Youth League: birthed out of an organization stretched thin under the increased extremism of Afrikaner nationalism’s abovementioned abuses, to change the parent-party’s overall approach from one they may have considered meek to one more assertive. By that time, the party had decided to hold hands with other activist organizations representing the interests of coloureds and Indians. The youth league effectively took a page out of the Afrikaner nationalism’s book and advocated that this, more militant approach, be based on African nationalism as a foundation. Their success seemed apparent as the ANC adopted this new direction in 1949 and later facilitated ‘The Defiance Campaign’: a programme of strikes and boycotts which demanded, amongst others, houses, security and free equal education. This list of demands would be later known as the ‘Freedom Charter’.
This new Africanist mentality: that Africans will resolve the problems that plague them by themselves; meaning, that they are their own people and should keep to themselves – in many ways similar to the mentality of Afrikaner nationalism, did not appreciate the cooperation between the party and other races’ activist organizations. They wanted the ANC to discard its vision of a non-racial future South Africa and in some ways, also its ‘weak’, more peaceful predisposition towards other races which, up to this point, clearly remained the foundation even of the new, more militant, direction taken. An impasse occurred within the party between these two visions of a future South Africa: one of Africans living as one with and enjoying their rights as equals of all the other races (the Non-racialists), and the other of Africans enjoying their rights and living as one but separate from the other races (the Africanists); a war of ideas which, in 1959, culminated with the discharge of the ‘Africanists’ who went on to form a new party: The Pan Africanist Congress (PAC).
The ANC’s militant struggle continued into the 1980s wherein it aimed at making townships ungovernable by destroying state-puppet-like local authorities and attacking municipal buildings. This weakened the national administrative system and caused its gradual decline thereby forcing community members to set up their own democratic structures for maintaining their communities e.g., street committees. The people finally gained control over their communities, a feat that, from then, the National Party government would see to it ‘corrected’.
Reading the history presented above, ask yourself: how similar is it to the state of our country today? Aside from the strikes associated with the destruction of property due to the ill-treatment of black people and the repressive government response to them via a militant police force, another similarity that stands out to me is the overall behaviour of the ANC government in comparison to that of the NP under apartheid. The government aims to conquer the citizen by dominating every aspect of his/her life – the centralization of all these aspects. For example, it seems to me that the apartheid and the ANC government do not want communities to do for themselves, e.g. repair their own infrastructure, provide for their own electricity by building their own power stations, provide for their own security etc. Both governments want communities to be dependent on them, so they are more easily controlled/suppressed.
The formation of the ANC was not to fight against and protect from Africans’ rights/freedoms abuses by others, it was the actual protection of African rights and freedoms; the, in practice, fighting against their abuses from others by Africans themselves for themselves. The ANC is not meant to protect Africans’ rights and freedoms as some entity separate from or above them, it was supposed to be a tool of that purpose – usable by all Africans. Instead, it became an organization, with its own name and identity thereby de facto separating itself from those it claims to represent, in order to represent them. By doing this, the ANC inadvertently staked its claim to power; power to speak on behalf of all oppressed; power it made clear it did not want to share with those it ‘represented’. You see, by becoming an organization separate from ‘the people’, the ANC became their service provider and they the client, and in that sense – it developed its own interests, goals, aspirations and prescribed them to the people.
A tool is simply that – a tool; It does not have its own agenda; its build is best suited for its optimal use achieved when engaging in a specific activity for a purpose determined by its user. As such, access to such an item has very little (if any) prerequisites. An organization is an opposite in the ways already indicated – its build/structure is best suited for its optimal use achieved when engaging in activity determined by itself for a purpose guided by its own agenda. As such, access to use its build/structure is limited by obstacles determined by the organization for purposes which must be validated/approved by the organization e.g. the distinction between ordinary citizens and members of the organization and the benefits allocated accordingly such as the fact that only members may access resources of the organization from which citizens are prohibited.
Today’s ANC is nothing like its inceptual form; the latter a political party that fights for the rights and freedoms of communities as a service it provides for compensation: the power to rule over them; while the former, at the time of its inception, was a unifying tool for use by oppressed members of communities to come together and fight for their rights and freedoms themselves to retain their power/sovereignty and ability to determine their own fates. The above-mentioned impasse, between Africanists (racialists/racists) and non-racialists within the party, represents the tension between the two approaches to activism as opposed to politics. There shouldn’t be a difference between the two but there is, the same way there shouldn’t be a difference between those who fight for freedom and those for whom freedom is fought. The existence of that difference presents a conflict of interest: those fighting to free others from oppression do so to eventually rule over and oppress in turn. Freeing others from oppression guarantees their dependence on thus oppression under you. In this sense, the ANC has been off its intended path for a long time now.
“You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.”
– 2013, Harvey Dent, The Dark Knight Rises
The second problem the ANC party and government are facing today is a natural process that often destroys human group formations from the inside: corruption. Implied in the quote above is an example of a more serious type of corruption that begins this natural process – that of one’s spirit: the factory of one’s actions. What follows is a second type of corruption, one that extends this natural process and exhibits its results as actions misguided by a skewed spiritual direction and thus strategy toward achieving a given goal. The current structure of today’s ANC government is evidence of the decision-making done, hence spiritual direction taken, by the party thus far – it has doubled down on its claim to power and has communicated to the rest of us, its ‘citizens’, its intention to retain this possession. Having liberated us from our former oppressors and automatically taking their place by that virtue, the ANC, in my opinion, does not consider itself a political party but royalty to whom allegiance is owed by us who, being indebted to it, are less than citizens – we are its subjects. The ANC president is also that of the country; meaning the party is the country; the only people allowed to vote for the party president – its members being its citizens; and the rest of the public, its subjects or second-class citizens.
A mindset not too different from that of the NP government under apartheid; thus, I see a trend of similar behaviour between the two as already mentioned: the colonizing of peoples’ private lives, of their rights and freedoms related to taking care of themselves and each other. Today, individuals are discouraged by local policies from taking up their responsibility to their communities by working together to further their collective prosperity. Regional and national laws exist that render such action prosecutable in civil/criminal court. That responsibility has effectively been handed over by us to the government as payment for their historical heroism; that it takes care of us and do for us as we cuddle in its arms and suckle from its constitutional teat – a debt we feel is paid only in a show of sworn fealty. For it to shoulder the administrative mountain associated with this responsibility, the ANC government has had to overgrow in size thereby increasingly centralizing everyday duties year by year.
Nature has laws that limit all and that includes the size of human group formations for optimal efficiency and effectiveness. Break these laws and you fulfil its other laws that pertain to self-destruction, in this case, intensifying factionalism and corruption. In my mind, and I argue also that of many others, the ANC will always be the movement that liberated black people and lifted oppression from the backs of many others in South Africa. This is what makes it irreplaceable by any of the other political parties; it did not earn its power by simply winning an election; it fought not only for the people but also alongside and as them thus its contribution to what is good about South Africa’s current state is what, in my opinion, makes it still the most eligible of the parties to occupy governance.
This is sad, considering its performance since taking power; none of the other parties is attempting to gain credibility the same way it did: fighting everyday battles on the ground with the rest of us to now liberate us from socio-economic systemic oppression of poverty thus inequality. They choose to fight for us in parliament; separate from being one of us. Even if any of the others gained the required level of credibility, we would simply replace the ANC with one of them – one master for another: all driven by a lust for power over us with no limit – perpetual centralization and over-regulation leading to inevitable self-destruction. This desire for an ever-bigger government/private sector for ever-increasing control over the populace is the fundamental problem: the problem of not giving the people their power so they can live their lives as they see fit, again – freedom within limits of course. Factionalism thus corruption is a symptom of this problem, this sickness – it is this that will eventually bring the party down.
In conclusion, the root cause of our socio-economic and political problems is a fundamental misunderstanding of natural laws as they pertain to leadership and power. I argue that the term ‘leadership’ is misleading, for a leader is meant to be a servant – a follower of the will of those who ‘follow’/uplift him/her. He/she willingly becomes their slave when all is said and done – a willing slave; and in return, is given their utmost respect, love, acceptance and loyalty; the same benefits as any one of their members – so his/her reward is ultimately the continued existence of the whole he/she serves thus his/her continued membership. We must become aware of the limits nature has set for us around organizing our resources for various endeavours. Power can and should be centralized in such cases but there is a limit to how much of it should be concentrated in one hierarchical structure (organization). Whoever fights for power and wins will then take that power for him/her/themselves, I believe this is natural law; therefore, one ideally should not fight so others can regain their power unless one can guarantee to resist its temptation oneself.
