Let us all speak out against the dangers of personality cult

In the midst of serious political challenges facing the ANC and the country - and the concomitant calls for president Zuma to step down both as president of the country and the ANC - some have decided to police our views instead of advancing cogent arguments in their support of president Zuma.

With no regard for the deteriorating socio-economic and political well-being of the country as a result of the Zuma personality cult, these individuals recite the tired narrative which they repeat monotonously: the president was elected by the ANC National conference and he will be removed by the same conference.

This statement is presented as a final administrative order as if the ANC has now become an administrative NGO that must only wait for periodical conferences before it can act on fundamental political challenges we face.

In this regard the ANC constitutional clauses are bandied about to frustrate those who raise their concerns regarding the damage done by president Zuma to the country and the ANC. The overall political challenges faced by the ANC are now subjected to constitutional prescripts instead of looking for a political solution.

In all of this, ANC politics are relegated to the background in the idiotic defense of an individual. We have long ceased to engage and analyse social phenomena from a political-class perspective of the ANC. The ANC leadership has become adept at quoting us constitutional stipulations to frustrate our efforts to seek a political solution to a political problem.

The fact here is that the nefarious matters surrounding president Zuma have serious political ramifications for the country and the ANC and should be approached from a political stand point. The administrative arguments about ANC constitutional prescripts are being used both to deepen the problem, and also to strip the very ANC constitution of its revolutionary content and relevance.

For instance, that president Zuma represents a particular political tendency of personality cult does not find space for political interrogation in the ANC. This is because many of those vocal in his defense shoot down any such discussions in their blind loyalty to the cult. The cult has turned them into political and useful machines that must act in predetermined ways in its service. They have become political prisoners of the cult and have been stripped of all their basic rights to many freedoms enjoyed by all other South Africans.

To them freedom of speech and freedom to your political views are alien concepts best expressed by ‘neoliberals’. They still hanker on the political dogmas of the previous era with no regard for the fast changing political phenomena in today’s South Africa.

The changing face of electoral politics is to them an imperialist plot to weaken the liberation movements in Africa. They conveniently overlook the demographical realities of Africa as an increasingly youthful continent. To them, the youth political protests are a sponsored agenda by the West and other world powers. That is the extent of toxicity in our body politic.

It is in this context that we wish to salute those few courageous liberation struggle veterans who have decided to stand up for the sake of our country and the ANC. We do so because we have observed a silent but increasingly disturbing behavior amongst the old guard of the ANC and former MK members.

These heroes of the liberation struggle still live in fear of the iron fist of Mbokodo, the erstwhile ANC Security Department in exile. The mention of Mbokodo evokes such paralyzing fear among these struggle heroes that they are rather content being treated as political antiques. To them Mbokodo knows everything they say and do. In fact, Mbokodo is at their door step.

Such is the political environment in which we find ourselves today. The bright stars of our liberation struggle now lack the courage of their political convictions, and the rogue elements and by-products of the revolution are full of passionate intensity and are in charge.

They dictate the form, content and pace of our political struggle to serve the interests of their cult. The people’s plight has now become a necessary rhetoric to legitimize the interests of the cult. Put differently, the interests of the cult are now presented as the interests of the masses.

That is why at this point it is apt to remember what Nikita Khrushchev said in his secret speech delivered in February 1956 at the party congress in the USSR. During this speech, Khrushchev berated the fatal consequences of the phenomenon of personality cult of Stalin.

With a heavy heart of regret, he pointed out the dangers of not confronting the cult of personality when this phenomenon began to rear its ugly head. Khrushchev narrated examples of countless party cadres and veterans that were subjected to trumped up charges and callously murdered by Stalin in his paranoid defense of his cult.

Painfully, we have now begun to see similarities of this Stalin era here in our own country today. Many a comrade have been subjected to trumped up charges for daring to question certain deals that the cult has approved. These tested cadres of the liberation struggle have been hounded to courts and taken to the cleaners as they spend their last cent to legal fees in their defense. Their family lives have been permanently scared by the trauma of having to adjust their living conditions to accommodate the new reality of unemployment.

The star performers of our deployees like Vusi Pikoli have had to find jobs in DA run governments because the cult wants nothing to do with them. Their professional and personal lives have been thrown into disarray as they scuttle about to protect the last vestiges of their integrity. They do all this on their own as their organization, the ANC, has sacrificed and abandoned them for the cult.

So before you argue that the sum total of the ANC’s and country’s problems are not about the Zuma cult you must think of all these cadres of our liberation struggle that have suffered under this cult. You must remember the losses the ANC suffered in the major metros as a result of this cult. Please do yourself a favour and remember the bleak economic situation we face in the country and possible downgrades as a result of the political and economic havoc caused by this cult. Remember the possible loss of power by the ANC in 2019.

But above all, I wish you can remember these famous words by Martin Niemoller when he said:

‘’First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me’’

Mzukisi Makatse is a member of the ANC and he writes in his personal capacity.