ANC ‘renewal’ is empty and we already have an alternative vision for South Africa

Why I speak of and how I understand betrayal is influenced by my reading of feminist theology and ethics and liberation theology, where a lot of emphasis is placed on the notion of connectedness.

Put into the context of the liberation Struggle, the ANC formed a connection with the oppressed people of South Africa. Its leading figures and rank and file derived almost entirely from the oppressed.

Many grew up seeing their parents humiliated or their family moved out of their homes or other forms of repression and indignity. When they joined the ANC during the Struggle, it sometimes derived from study and debate. But those who joined also had to prepare themselves for the dangers entailed and the possibility of arrest, torture and death.

In a sense, they put their bodies and their lives at the service of the Struggle for freedom. And that Struggle was the embodiment of what had meaning for them, a primary meaning in their lives.

When whites joined as freedom fighters, they went beyond acts of solidarity. They did not already have a connection with the oppressed people of South Africa. They had to establish that connection and in forming that connection, they did more than intellectually or morally identify with the liberation Struggle.

They and their black brothers and sisters formed a bond, and it was partly based on an understanding of the direction that the realisation of freedom had to take. But simultaneously, they embodied an emotional response to the experiences of the oppressed in the case of whites and in the case of those who emerged from the oppressed, they were in the Struggle because they continued to feel the pain of their mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters and others who they did not know, who experienced apartheid, like their kinsfolk.

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It was not simply an exercise in logic whereby one distinguished between right and wrong by virtue of certain theories that were drawn on. It was also a sense that one identified with and felt passion over the pain that the poor experienced under apartheid.

That could be witnessed in the way Chris Hani used to speak – accessible, explaining very complicated ideas in an idiom that all could understand. But there was also passion when he said: “We have always lived the ANC in our camps. We have dreamt about the ANC. There was no other life for us except the African National Congress. Let us make it a strong organisation. Let us build our [Communist] Party because it is the alliance of the ANC and the Party which made the army what it is.” (Extract from an undated speech by Hani addressing an Umkhonto weSizwe camp in exile, transcribed from a video given to me by Zeph Makgetla, formerly head of the ANC video unit.)

It was not an act of solidarity on the part of whites, as in “standing with” or “in support of” the oppressed, but being with them in the same trenches. The notion of solidarity was less applicable to black people than to whites. Not every oppressed person took this step but those who did were determined to ensure a “better life” for all, no matter what it cost them.

A small but significant number of whites threw themselves into the liberation Struggle, and some like Bram Fischer, Ruth First, Rick Turner and Neil Aggett gave their lives during the Struggle to free our country.

Something has gone “terribly wrong”. It is correct to suggest that the ANC (and its allies) betrayed the oppressed. The act of joining the ANC entailed a commitment, by forming a bond with the oppressed, linking the fate of the organisation with the people whose freedom and dignity it pledged itself to secure.

This connection with the oppressed during the post-apartheid period, notably in the Jacob Zuma presidency and the post-Zuma period, has been ruptured.

In the case of the rise of Zuma, it was known that there were credible allegations of corruption against him. In his rape trial the leadership of the whole ANC-led alliance danced and sang in his support while the complainant was battered in court – one of the most shameful moments in ANC/SACP/Cosatu history, for which little responsibility has been taken. In other words, individuals may now disassociate themselves from Zuma corruption but not admit anything wrong in their pillorying of the rape complainant Fezekile Ntsukela Kuzwayo, referred to as “Khwezi”.

In the notorious Nkandla “improvements”, money was diverted from what was intended for relief of poverty towards financing the luxurious home of then president Zuma.

Many people who were high in the ranks of the ANC/SACP and government leadership joined in defending the Nkandla spending.

In a sense, they turned their backs on everything they had stood for in earlier years. In other scandals, it emerged that some who had been very brave at one point in their lives, engaged in stealing, in irregular tenders or a range of other malpractices.

Some who have not yet come before the courts who are alleged to have been involved in crooked deals, were deployed in Lesotho with Hani. And in Lesotho, people will know it was a life-and-death situation from day to day. A person could be a comrade who was with you and the next day wiped out by the apartheid regime.

Some who were in such situations have subsequently betrayed the ideals for which they stood in the Struggle by stealing from the state, the state which was created to better the life of the poor. This is something we need to try to understand (not condone, just grapple with), for it was the state they had previously struggled to create. How did this happen to so many?

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My use of the word betrayal is not as an emotive word. It is a description of a pattern of conduct by the ANC in general, and individuals, mainly in the leadership of the ANC, which is an accurate description of what happened in the Zuma and post-Zuma period. But my belief is that it was not a totally new phenomenon.

Abuse before Zuma?

Can the ANC renew itself?

Is there an alternative?

In a sense, in defending the Nkandla spending, many who were high in the ranks of the ANC/SACP and government leadership turned their backs on everything they had stood for in earlier years. (Photo: Gallo Images / City Press / Khaya Ngwenya)