The centenary conference of Mangaung is a platform to restore the traditions of our 1912 founding conference.

The magnitude and scale at which the antagonistic forces are at play to capture the soul of the ANC as we approach our historic centenary conference in Mangaung absolves our long held view that imperialism never thought our movement would ever celebrate its centenary. This has been proven by the unprecedented effort to undermine the integrity of Cde Jacob Zuma who is both the President of the ANC and the state and equally without fear of any contradiction the face of our national democratic revolution.

It is therefore important from the premise of these difficult conditions imposed by the dominant world of imperialism and neo liberal fundamentalism, that we appreciate the realities that our collective leadership has not just only succeeded in ushering us into the centenary but more importantly in using the strategic and tactical choices of our movement to triumph over the forces of oppression and exploitation. 

We are proud that our movement is still cherished by the same ideals that inspired our founding fathers. The ideals whose its core values and principles are for the construction of a non-racial, non sexist, democratic and a prosperous South African society. The new continues to be born out of the old.

Our national liberation movement is traversing the most difficult epoch in its history of leading the struggles for the liberation of our people. Since the adoption of the historic Black Republic thesis in 1928, our movement has been under great influence and support from the former Soviet Union. To this morning of my attempt to write this opinion, the collapse of the soviet block and the 2007 world economic recession have been the most veracious moments in the history of the existence of our movement that so much attempted to fiddle with our outlook.

The sudden collapse of the Soviet block and the subsequent unipolar world power relations changed dramatically the balance of forces in favour of the accumulative regime, and whilst the 2007 world economic recession represents the manifestations of the realities of the failures of the post cold war neo liberal economic triumphalism. Both these two important moments signify a turning point in the history of the evolution of the different phases of our struggles in the sense that they have exacerbated the internal contradictions within the ANC.

These internal contradictions have sparked a theoretical debate from within the ranks of our movement and our society in general, around the question as to what posture and character the ANC should assume in the mist of the hostile realities of the unipolar world and secondly the strategies and tactics our national democratic revolution should implore in taking forward our tasks for the transformation of the socio economic relations of our society. 

Therefore the people of our country and the world should appreciate the rare and outstanding contribution the collective leadership of cde Jacob Zuma is making to assist the ANC to navigate itself through this difficult phase of our struggles. Historical records will obviously concur with our view that in comparison to the preceding collective leadership of our movement since 1930, the leadership under Cde Jacob Zuma has been the only one to have led our movement at the height of conditions of the most complex and aggressive world capitalist economic crisis.

As the world faces the worst economic recession of its modern times, our people should appreciate the realities that our country has managed to stabilize its economy to its best under the circumstances. Ours is a success story in comparisons to the stronger economies of the euro zone such as the ones of Spain, Portugal, Greece and many others, that experienced the worse crunch in recent times.

One of the major contributory factors was the ability of our collective leadership to rally the unity and cohesion of our revolutionary alliance in taking forward our program for the reconstruction and development of our country. The leadership was able to reaffirm the centrality of our alliance as a strategic component to lead struggles of our people into the future. This has as a result affirmed the notion that our organic alliance was born out of our common struggles to liberate our people from the bondage of imperialism and apartheid colonialism.

Our movement continues to identify itself with the strategic objectives of our national democratic revolution. Our historic mission still remain to be the liberation of the black people in general and the African people in particular. The ANC must lead our people in their effort to build a new society. We are the only political formation in our country with the vision and capabilities to foster the core fundamental values and principles of nation building and formation. 

After the formation of the Union of South Africa in 1910 that excluded the black people of our country from their socio economic and political mainstream, our historic leadership saw it relevant and necessary to unite all the different progressive forces which were organized according to tribal lines into a political movement in the form of the ANC. The reason why it is important that we use the platform afforded by the our historic centenary conference to be held in Mangaung to fight any tendency that seek to perpetuate the demon of tribalism, racism or regionalism. 

Our branches and provinces therefore have a political responsibility during this build up period of nominations towards the conference to instill the values, traditions and culture that have over the years distinguished the ANC from the rest as the a revolutionary movement. The only way to acknowledge and appreciate the profound contribution of the generations of leaders who led our movement  through out the hundred years of its existence, is to swell the ranks of our movement and use the occasion of our centenary conference to restore the true traditions of our founding conference in 1912. 

Amongst others one of the most strategic focus of conference is continue with our collective determination to resolve the national question. In other words provinces such as Kwazulu Natal which will be leading the biggest delegation to conference and Northern Cape with the smallest delegation should mount their qualitative and quantitative strength to advance the nobles goals of our national democratic revolution.Our branches, regions and provinces have the revolutionary obligation to use this required balanced strength to build on the unity and cohesion of our movement.

We are looking forward for a robust debate amongst our branches as they take decisions as to who should be nominated the serve in the national executive committee of the ANC. Our determination should indeed be to use the platform and the opportunity of the forthcoming centenary conference to demonstrate that the ANC is the only political formation capable of leading the revolutionary project of building a non racial, non sexist, democratic and prosperous south africa. 

Phatse Justice Piitso is the former ambassador to Cuba and provincial secretary of the SACP writing this article on his personal capacity. 

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