Siphiwe, a guest on the “Tlhware Logonyana” blog (http://wataola.blogspot.com) is of the view that, at the core of the current issues plaguing the ANC is the historical if not age old class divide within the movement. Nothing wrong with that except on his way to or after reaching that conclusion he makes certain statements that unfortunately detract from what is by all accounts a fine mind.
He traces the leadership of the ANC back to 1912 pointing out that each one of the past presidents was either of royalty, a businessman but certainly educated past high school. It is the education or royalty of the individuals he states that seem to entitle them to the leadership of the ANC and consequently make them custodians of the aspirations of the rural peasants and the urban unorganised proletariat. This trend is however happily (to Siphiwe) broken by the election of Jacob Zuma as the first ANC president in history who does not, unlike previous presidents, hold a university degree. Nothing wrong with that either except the thesis seems to make very little of the democratic traditions of the ANC.
Siphiwe seems to suggest that it is not the membership of the ANC (the majority of whom are the masses/peasants/urban proletariat) who have going back to 1912 elected the elite to the leadership of the ANC. In his view, these individuals owe their leadership of the ANC to their status, chief of which is their education. A closer look at the history of the ANC will reveal to Siphiwe that the ANC became a masses/peasant/urban proletariat, later rather than at inception. So the earlier leadership of the ANC would have been of the elite, by the elite, for the elite. Siphiwe will also recall that the likes of Sol Plaatjie actually regarded themselves as subjects of the Queen and distinguished themselves from the amaqaba (those who have not been converted to Christianity). This Siphiwe will find fascinating.
The ANC in fact retained its Christian elitist nature until the Tambo/Mandela youth league took over and the relationship with the SACP grew and with it the 1950’s walk-out of the Africanists. Enough with the history, the point is, each president and other leaders of the ANC for that matter has always been elected by the membership of the ANC, in accordance with its constitution. The fact that these individuals spoke English through their nostrils (like Pallo Jordan) or have a strong accent (like the late Govan Mbeki), was incidental to the electoral process and their ability to lead, for the purposes of the struggle. Jacob Zuma minus a university degree remained in the leadership of the ANC both during exile years and after its un-banning, because he was elected by the members of the movement including the black Englishmen among them. Rank and file members of the ANC determine the leadership and not university degrees or royalty.
The sub-text of Siphiwe’s post is more troubling. The ANC, and I do not hold its brief, is not only the home of the masses (in the sense attributed to that term by Siphiwe) but is a home to the petit bourgeoisie, the intelligentsia and all others, including the black Englishmen. It is not, like Siphiwe would like us to believe, a home for the one or the other.
I do not know what COPE had to say about Zuma or whether they have called him a fool, if they did then it was nothing short of foolhardy. I do know that when COPE or anyone else questions Jacob Zuma’s ability or otherwise to lead, such questions are fundamentally different to the racist belief that black people, as consequence of being black, cannot lead. The ANC has through its own processes confirmed that no leader is beyond reproach or recall. As a public figure I am sure Msholozi is no stranger to the robust nature of politicking. Each one of us is quite entitled to choose whom we believe we can entrust our future to. If we differ on that, it is disingenious to then suggest that we differ because I wish to be more English than the English.
There is nothing wrong with the people determining their own future, be they peasants of stockbrokers – in fact that is what it is all about; provided that by “the people” we mean “the people” and not “some of the people”. COPE has rightly or wrongly done precisely that. They have within the rules of our democracy chosen to go their own way. The people of this land will decide whether or not to vote for COPE, trust me the people may be illiterate or may be without tertiary education, but they know what they want. Similarly, the people may be stockbrokers and lawyers; and they too know what they want.
There is nothing wrong in my view with pursuing higher education. Jacob Zuma himself encourages the youth (primarily) to learn. He is even prepared to send the errant youth to some far off centres of learning – by force!
The correlation between academia and leadership may be poor, as Siphiwe suggest, it is however no less poor than the correlation between being of the masses and leadership. Leadership is a quality best judged on its own merit. In as much as it is nonsense to attribute competence to a race, it is equally nonsense to attribute all of evil to the English-through-the-nostrils black bourgeois.
Finally and with respect to Siphiwe, there is no such thing as unconscious class bias. The bias is conscious, that is the whole point of a class – to reproduce itself, consciously! The very views that Siphiwe propagates are meant to secure the interests of the classes on whose behalf he as the vanguard, speaks. It is all meant to be dialectical isn’t it?
I wish that we could all engage in a conversation rather than demonising each other. There is value in what each one of us has to say about the future of our country and on how the gains our collective struggles have made, can be secured. It cannot be that just because one belongs to some (artificial) grouping or another, one should not be allowed to express one’s view. I agree that the peasants should have a voice in how their country is run, but not to the exclusion of the middle class black Englishmen; they too have something to contribute.
Incidentally, it is ironically the ANC’s election poster with Jacob Zuma on it that boldly proclaims: “TOGETHER (judges, peasants, communists, academics, etc) WE CAN DO MORE”!
Posts
Response from Siphiwe M
ReplyDeletePwehh...MoAfrika,I think I struck a nerve somewhere in between all this.
Clearly you are more in tune with the history of the movement than I can ever be, but at the same time, I think you completely missed some of my key arguments. You correctly trace the history of the ANC to its elitist roots, but missed my argument that over time it has morphed largely into a mass-based organization (labour movements, reds, activists, comrades, cadres, etc) somewhere between the late 60's and late 80's. The observation I was making was that, despite its transformation into a mass-based form, it has largely retained its elitist leadership traditions (by leadership, I am specifically referring to the Presidency - which is a position that recently came under the spotlight at Polokwane). The deep divisions and factionalism we experienced were rather unprecedented, and all I was doing was offering an alternative hypothesis of why this might have been the case. Things got so bad that we now even have a splinter group (COPE). How else does one explain away the heightened level of resentment against Zuma (the man), the constant questioning of his leadership qualities, his moral values, etc? It cannot possibly be for the poor judgement he exercised when he rightly or wrongly accepted financial favours from a comrade that was later to be convicted for fraud, because the very same people that are the most vocal on this, are quick to turn around and say, lets not open the pandora box (of arms deal investigation), as its reach is far wider and deeper than the ordinary man in the street can appreciate. "Mr Clean" himself, Terror, in my recollection, has never made any public utterances on having full transparency on the deal.
On the other hand, you need to remember that for a long time, and I will argue that up to today, the struggle for self emancipation in SA has always been defined by race and continues to be so (remember, "I'm a black South African first, before I am communist").. yes the system was very anti-communist, but the repression was far more brutal to you if you were black, communist or non-communist. MoAfrika, what you then seem to suggest, in not so many words, by proclaiming that ours (black South Africans mass) has always been a class struggle, I would vehemently oppose. You would struggle to find evidence to support that view. We were all black, we were all poor... apartheid made sure that it stripped all blacks (able or not able, educated or uneducated, etc) the right to partake in economic activity at a scale where one could begin to transcend class divides. If you wanted to pursue certain careers (e.g. being an engineer), you could only do so in exile, not in this country. This situation only changed to a large extent during the last 15 years of our democracy, inspired by TM's (even during Tata's term) ambition to swell the ranks of the black middle class. After waiting for 15 years to be somehow (by some divine intervention) pulled into this middle class, the ordinary mass has given up all hope that it is going to happen.... as evidently, these opportunities continue to accrue to the "black elite" (may have also been technically "poor" before, but with benefit of right "elite" surname, benefit of tertiary education, struggle credentials, etc). The facts are there for all to see... who were the direct beneficiaries in the first wave of BEE deals? Did they have anything extraordinary to offer compared to you and me? Probably not. I would argue that it is only recently that the mass is starting to see their struggle as being a class one rather than a race struggle. We are sick and tired of poverty. Our darkie brothers have but all forgotten about us and our struggle to survive from one week to the next.
I never for once advocated that the movement is for the mass, at the exclusion of other narrow interest groups (petit bourgeoisie, the intelligentsia and all others, including the black Englishmen). The fact is, the majority of the membership continues to come from the ranks of the rural peasantry, masses and urban proletariat. If you accepted this as a fact, then your line of reasoning regarding 'democratically elected by all members of the movement' is tantamount (at least in my head as a mass) to SA electing a white president (from the minority racial group) in our first democratic elections in 1994 (only because he came from the same "class" as the majority of the black voters). In SA, race defined one, including one's class. This is clearly an absurd argument, and proves that ours has not always been a class struggle by any stretch of the imagination, it has always been about race (at least to the general mass). I concede though, that the black Englishmen might have always viewed it differently.
Thanks
Sphiwe
Siphiwe, may the conversation continue and deepen. For the record, please accept my apologies if I ever suggested that ours was a class struggle, I never would consciously make such an assertion. Leadership, I'm afraid is an elitist concept. I like you do wish that "Kgosi e nne thotobolo, e olle matlakala". This Batswana said about their leaders, they should be the rubbish heap on which the nation should come to offload. For that though, I'm afraid we are a few centuries late. Let's keep talking mfowethu, most importantly let's keep listening, especially to those with whom we disagree. Pula!
ReplyDelete"That aside, it only dawned on me that this sad episode in the movement's history has at its core, the "class" divide that has always existed within the movement." Siphiwe M. Yet in his response to MoAfrika's article Siphiwe M goes on about how he was not on about about class. In classical SAn euphemism this is a shifting of the goal post.
ReplyDeleteThe struggle of the ANC has never been about race, it has also never been about class. It has always been about a need to be included in the running of this country. This started during the formation of the Union of South Africa when they wrote to the queen of England for a request to be included in the Union right up to the CODESA talks where it was agreed that they will be included in the running of this country. It is therefore not suprising that things have not changed for the masses because everything remains the same except that there is a smattering of black faces here and there in business (or capital in Marxist lingo) and the ruling party is black.
Remember the ANC prides itself on being a broad church and the PAC was formed precisely because of its "radical" Pan Africanist views....go read the Freedom Charter. To say that the ANC struggle has always been about race is a complete fabrication of history or shows a complete lack of understanding of history. And the SACP has always (since the 50's) until Slovo's death been the think tank of the ANC. And the SACP has always been about class hence they called SA's case cololialism of a special kind. The SACP has a racist history also by the way.
Your argument, before the goal post shifted, is simplistic...Zuma is for the peasants because he is not educated and all the ANC leaders before him were for the elites because they are educated. Your subsequent argument is based on falsehood and very simplistic. Contrast the history of the PAC and the ANC and come up with a better argument.