The death of Xola Nene must spur us on to fight against crass materialism and opportunism?
On the 09th of October, 2010, in Ndevana Location near King William's Town, the tombstone of the late comrade Xola Nene will be unveilled. Comrade Xola "Gangatha" Nene was cowardly murdered in his sleep by thugs of the Pan Africanist Student Movement of Azania (PASMA) in 2001, whilst deployed to campaign for SASCO at Butterworth campus of the former Eastern Cape Technikon. He was then the Chairperson of South African Student Congress (SASCO) in the Eastern Cape Province. He was also a member and activist in the ANCYL, ANC, SAPC and COSATU. He was a rare breed that had a voluptuous appetite for Mass Democratic Movement politics. As his comrades, friends and family pay tribute to this young, gallant and committed fighter of our revolution, it is one's intention to also attempt at characterisation of the period that immediately followed the death of Xola Nene in the Eastern Cape.
The death of Xola and its aftermath revealed a particular political reality that is not much talked about within the political trajectory of the Eastern Cape Province. This political reality is seldom discussed even among those who used and still share a common political perspective with Xola on various, vexing political questions facing our province and the country generally. This political reality is that following the death of comrade Xola Nene, there was a kind of political annihilation and the dislodging of progressive political forces in the province in favour of the opportunists who saw an opportunity to ascend to political power for reasons best selfish to them. This political annihilation and the dislodging of progressive political forces was expressed in two forms.
The first form was the conscious disruption and dislodging of the growing resistance from SASCO and other progressive political forces in the province against the status quo. The main thrust of that status quo was the capitalist market logic which favoured the commodification and commercialisation of education so that only those who had the money were given an opportunity to access higher education. As the hub of that resistance in the province and student movement in general, the University of Fort Hare students fiercely opposed such a capitalist logic; with Xola's SASCO in the forefront of such struggles.
We stood firm proclaiming that students could not agree to submit themselves to a capitalist logic that regarded university education as a privilege for the few rather than a right for the majority of our youth, African youth in particular. We were unequivocal in stating that in the face of huge shortages in relevant skills in the country, financial exclusions were counter productive and were inimical to the ANC government's stated objective of ensuring a better skilled youth for a growing and shared economy. We vowed never to betray the cause of freedom and fought tirelessly to ensure the right to education for the youth of this country.
Accordingly, it became clear to the powers that be--- both within higher education institutions and government--- that the best strategy was to disrupt, dislodge and annihilate SASCO's leadership and other activists so that there was very minimal if at all disruption to the market fundamentalism to commodify education. Comrades were either expelled or suspended from tertiary institutions and were forced out of the province as no employment opportunities were available for them given the hostilities directed against them. Many of those who pursued this annihilation strategy in the Eastern Cape Province thought that Xola's comrades would end up in the political wilderness and never to be heard of again. Nothing could have been further from the truth!
This particular kind of political annihilation also took the form of dislodging and weakening the ANCYL leadership and other youth structures in the province. Structures such as the Provincial Youth Commission under Mlungisi Lumka were pressurised to toe the capitalist logic and when they resisted, comrades were suspended and eventually fired from their jobs. The annihilation strategy was in full swing! Thanks to ANC Polokwane conference this strategy was disturbilised (or so we thought) because many of those who were agents of the annihilation strategy left the ANC when their candidate lost in Polokwane.
Instead of abiding by the majority decision and keep engaging from within, as is always the case in the ANC, they chose political obliteration. So as they left, we witnessed a new, but not so new wave which opportunistically rode on the leadership outcome of the ANC Conference in Polokwane. This not so new opportunistic wave had very simmilar characteristics with the annihilators we mentioned above.
The 'new' opportunistic wave touted and shouted the Zuma campaign not because there was any political perspective shared with comrade Zuma; but an agenda to dislodge the then ANC and ANCYL leadership and activists in the province--- from whose ranks Xola came--- so that it would become 'their turn' to lead the ANC and ANCYL in the province. The organic development of leadership through hard work and experience in the practical work of the ANC, youth development and youth politics as practiced then in the province was abrutely replaced by an entitlement to lead due to "our support for JZ". Xola's comrades in the ANC and ANCYL were either forced to be political tokens or withdraw from active politics. The latter seemed a better devil!
This political annihilation, inevitably, had a paralysing effect on the ANC as the opportunistic wave had as its ultimate objective the control of the ANC for the sole purpose of accessing resources so that they can dispense patronage whilst getting rich as fast as they could. The fight between the two rival groups during the Eastern Cape Provincial conferences of the ANC and ANCYL testified to the presence and disruptive modus operandi of this opportunistic wave. This 'new' opportunistic wave of annihilators was to entrench politics of money, patronage and cult of personality. The old traditions and culture of the liberation movement, to which Xola so strongly subscribed, were either abused to achieve narrow interests of the 'new' wave of opportunistic annihilators; or brutally suppressed to advance a new culture of crass materialism.
It is without doubt that Xola would have strongly opposed the predatory culture of crass materialism to which we have come to be accustomed in the ANC, ANCYL and not least SASCO. The province of the Eastern Cape, I could imagine him argue, need to take the lead and be exemplary in fighting the cancer that is eating away the revolutionary morality and fibre of our liberation movement.
Moving from the premise and understanding that any process of development is a diagonal phenomenon full of surprise detours, political disengagement is not an option for those who identify themselves with the ideals of Xola Nene because he himself was not a coward. It is therefore incumbent upon all those who dare call themselves Xola's comrades to wake up and defend his ideals and fight the 'new' opportunistic wave of annihilators so that the ANC, ANCYL and not least SASCO in the province are not transformed into a big, fat tender that can be bought by the highest bidder. It is our responsibility to ensure that the ANC, ANCYL and not least SASCO is rid of those who use money as the sole and over-riding determinant for leadership in the ANC, ANCYL and SASCO.
We must all fight resolutely to defeat the political hyenas who want to turn the ANC and the ANCYL into a money making pyramid scheme for themselves and their cronies. This ANC and ANCYL, first and foremost, belong to Xola's people, the rural and urban poor, and the toiling working class masses.
Lastly, the Eastern Cape Province knows who Xola Nene is because he was the son of this province. The Eastern Cape Province knows what Xola Nene stood for because he was very vocal and clear about his views. Those in the ANC, ANCYL, SACP, COSATU, COSAS and SASCO who today claim not to know Xola Nene are either suffering from self-induced amnesia or are deliberately ignoring to learn about his valuable contribution in the struggle for a fulfilling democracy that lifts our people out of poverty and under development.
Let's make sure that Xola Nene's death was not in vain!
Mzukisi Makatse is a former SASCO leader and SRC Secretary and President at the University of Fort Hare
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