On the same vein and as an organisation, we revile in strongest terms the continued disparaging slander by some self-imposed political commentators and analysts on casting aspersions on the integrity of the ANC President and challenging his bona fides.
Yet again Professor Pityana has made a clown of himself by his overzealous confusion and comical postulations about the ANC President and the ANC leadership about some self-imaginary, bogus and phony "uncertainty and anxiety" in the country. They are infor med by his over-zest to self-glorification and self-preservation, coated in irrationality and contra-distinctions.
He speaks about the respect of the constitution and the rule of law, whilst finding it fashionable to disrespect the democratically elected ANC leadership and its President, and finding him guilty before any court of law pronounces on the matter. As a Pro fessor, we can't educate him about the cardinal principle of innocent until proven guilty. Maybe he knows something that we don't know!
Can the real intellectuals rise up please, as Pityana fits no closer to this definition? He is nothing but an embodiment of sponsored views, epitomizing overwrought confusion and anarchist tendencies. I hold with great esteem organic intellectuals of depth and content such as Prixley Ka Seme, Anton Lembede, Mosses Mabinda, Nelson Mandela, OR Tambo, Tiyo Soga, John Tengo Jabavu, Mpilo Walter Benson Rubusana and Samuel Edward Krune Mqhayi to name just a few. Their depth and content contributed within the Afri can communities their thoughts and intellect to various facets of life, including unity, cohesion, scholarly revolution and societal livelihood. These were intellectuals of note who generated knowledge independently and organically to change the course of history.
Frankly, Pityana is a typical ivory tower academic and ignorant reactionary who has to sober up and cross over the road from Polokwane. The train has long passed the station, and its time he wakes up from the slumber-land and smell the coffee. What constit uency does he really represent?
Jane Haddan once remarked, so befittingly to Pityana and company that, "the ill-bred always seemed to know half of history, and to get it confused with the other half".
This is an extract of Fikile Mbalula's political report to the 23rd national congress of the Youth League, University of the Free State, Manguang, April 3 2008
