On Monday the 16th of March, two days after the ANC NEC expressed its support for Julius Malema and his shoot the Boer song, in a strange but interesting paradox, the Equality Court found Julius Malema, President of the ANCYL, guilty of hate speech for his utterances against the woman who once laid a rape charge (which crumbled in court) against our president, comrade Jacob Zuma. This decision comes right on the heels of many other denigrating abusive insults hailed at women by Julius during his visit at the University of Johannesburg, about which our leadership in the ANC NEC said nothing. To my astonishment, up to date the ANC NEC has not said a word about the implications of this decision by the Equality Court and what it should mean to all of us as members of the ANC in the context of our struggle against the oppression of women.
Could this mean our ANC NEC are so entangled in managing factional politics in that they can't even see what is going on outside the now open, now hidden succession debate? Are we content on elevating the over-inflated egos of certain individuals above principle and strategic objectives of our movement? Have we suspended our pursuit of a non-racial and non-sexist society at the alter of policing those who dare raise their views and preferences in the succession debate? What about the vocal silence on the part of the ANCWL? Are they content and succumbing to the insults and terror by certain marauding anarchists of no particular origin? These and other questions should be answered honestly and objectively so that there is renewed focus on what we ought to do as the ANC to advance towards creating a truly non-racial and non-sexist society.
I have tried hard to ponder the objective reason by our ANC NEC (and one Communications Workers Union) to come out loud in support of the song sang by Julius Malema at the University of Johannesburg, chanting the shoot the Boer song. It boggles my mind that the ANC NEC decided not to contexualise the historical significance of our revolutionary songs in the rush to defend Julius. Should we accept the notion that revolutionary songs, such as the one Julius sang, get sung out of nostalgia and a purposeless journey to history?
The Historical Context of Dubul' Ibhulu Song and the Deepening of our National Democratic Revolution
Many of us grew up singing and understanding revolutionary songs as instruments to express those political convictions and objectives we held dear to our hearts. We sang these songs to express our anger, sadness, hope and the need for change; the expressed intention to bring about a particular political outcome. Every revolutionary song was in tandem with the prevailing political conditions of the time. There were numerous ways in which our people kept track of current political events - speeches, newspapers, pamphlets, cartoons and festivals - but only singing was accessible to all.
In our specific struggles under apartheid, we sang songs like dubul' ibhulu as an expression of anger and intent towards the racist system that racially oppressed us while on the other hand whites were singing and using Die Stem as a historical justification for this racial oppression. We also sang this and other songs like it to express our hope and vision of a non-racial, non-sexist, democratic, united and prosperous South Africa. Such a vision found resonance with many of our people because the songs we sang were not only relevant to our circumstances, but inspired us to sacrifice even more in order to achieve this ideal society.
New Conditions and Old Songs
The rapid political changes in the country since the release of Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners right up to post apartheid period necessitated that we modify many of the revolutionary songs we sang before whilst composing new ones relevant to the new conditions. We did that because we had to make sure that our people move along with the rapid changes as long as those changes were directly influenced by their struggles.
As part of an ever changing political environment, many songs were thus modified to respond to the changed environment so that our people are focused on the current political tasks at hand; not reminisce over past songs that had no bearing on the current political conditions. The places and time to reminisce over those past songs that had no bearing on our political conditions were in most cases beer halls where we imbibed the tears of Lady Victoria while letting our own tears streaming down our cheeks as a sign of past emotions.
In rallies, meetings and other serious political gatherings, we sang songs that not only lifted our people's spirits, but songs that let others knew which side of the revolutionary camp they supported and even warned the enemy of the inevitable victory of the revolution. We did all this using lyrics that best displayed our intentions to create a society free of all forms of prejudice.
The question we must therefore ask today is: do lyrics like dubul' ibhulu today best display our intentions to construct a non-racial society within the prevailing national democratic system? Maybe the attendant question should be: which political force should lead or is leading this national democratic project of creating and constructing a non-racial and non-sexist society, and what conduct is expected of that leading force?
If the ANC has adopted the Freedom Charter (which states that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white) as its principal and overall political programme and has declared itself as leader of society towards creating a non-racial, non-sexist, democratic and united South Africa, is singing Dubul' ibhulu today a conduct that best displays our intention in line with this profound historical mission? Are we not being irresponsible and self defeating in our resolve to build a country where non-racialism is the order of the day?
If we are true (and I think we are true) to the assertion that ours is not to create a country where white supremacy and arrogance is substituted by the black version of the same practice, then as a leading force we ought to condemn any behaviour that will push away potential allies in pursuit of the project of creating a non-racial society. We have made so much progress in our endeavor to create a non-racial and democratic society. We can't let certain individuals derail this progress simply because of their loose rhetoric and uncaring attitudes towards this ideal.
The nature and character of the ANC is such that it understands the basic and strategic political necessity to unite all South Africans and lead them in the march towards a non-racial society. The ANC understands this not because it harbors fear or intimidation by any other political force, but because it values the principles of non-racialism and non-sexism as long standing objectives of the ANC, and that no amount of voluntarism will help achieve these objectives. We therefore understand the importance to calculate our tactics correctly so as adequately balance these with our long term strategic objectives. We are very careful not to adopt incorrect tactics or over state them in a way that compromises our long term strategic objectives.
I am not naïve nor oblivious to the continued racial practices and racialised poverty that still prevail in the country. These are obviously perpetuated by those who still believe in the rationality of an irrational notion of racial supremacy of one race over the other. Further, our programmes as the ANC have made inroads and continue to do so in eradicating the legacy of apartheid which has seen many black people condemned in the vicious cycle of poverty. However, we truly believe that much more remains to be done to deal with the structural inequalities in our country that have seen a widening gap between the rich white majority with some few black elite, and the overwhelmingly black poor people with some few poor whites.
My assertion is that we cannot, as the ANC, delegate and abdicate our responsibility to lead the project of creating a non-racial country through irresponsible and reckless statements and songs that have no relevance to the immense challenge of building a non-racial and non-sexist South Africa. Whether we like it or, it is our responsibility as the ANC, first and foremost, to be careful and disciplined in our leadership of this non-racial and no-sexist project. No amount of excitement generated by media attention and TV cameras will help do what is necessary to achieve our political objectives. Hard choices will have to be made, including discarding some of the historical practices and songs that do not best display our intention to build a different kind of society we promised to create for our people.
Once we start using inflammatory language and dangerous rhetoric at the expense of this non-racial and non-sexist project, we would not have only proven ourselves incapable of leading this project, but would have let down our people who are yearning for the end to all forms of racial oppression and prejudice.
Preserving our Historical Heritage and Moving Forward
At least modern political science recognizes the truism that all social systems are founded on definite historical origins; and that they bear the imprint of their past. This statement is as relevant to our country today as it was many years ago. Informed by this fact, it becomes essential that we preserve the collective heritage of our history not only to remind ourselves of the past, but also to learn from it so that we inform the present whilst influencing the future.
Accordingly, we also need to be careful not to over emphasise history at the expense of the present; or over emphasise the present at the expense of history and the future. We need to strike a delicate balance and extrapolate the best and progressive features of our past to help us build the present for the future. We must be careful not to credit those relative features of our collective past as absolute features. In this way we will be able to move forward without getting locked in the past unnecessarily. As old revolutionaries would know, nothing is static and unchanging, but change itself.
Mzukisi Makatse is a member of ANC and ANCYL Centurion Central Branch, writing in a personal capacity
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