TOWARDS THE CENTENARY OF THE ANC, GOING BEYOND THE LEADERSHIP DEBATE - A REFLECTION FROM A YOUNG PERSON

1.       Over the past years of existence, the assembly of the people - the ANC has been faced with a number of challenges. Key among these challenges was issues relating to the liberation of black people in general and Africans in particular from all forms of social, economic and political deprivation. In 2012, our movement will be finishing 100 years of existence. This provides the movement with the opportunity to reflect on the road travelled and whether or not the mileage it has earned corresponds with the revolutionary tasks it had during its formation. This is one of the fundamental milestones the 2012 conference of the ANC must respond to.

2.       The extent of polarisation as we go towards the ANC conference in 2012 is surprising to say the least. There is nothing that focuses on the key priority issues leading to the conference which will assist the organisation in fulfilling its revolutionary obligations for the total liberation of our people. There is more on who must be elected in the conference and this alone makes no contribution to the principles for which the ANC seeks to achieve. This debate does not even indicate what kind of a product of leadership that must emerge under what analysis this must be achieved from.

3.       The most important thing to note is that conferences come and go, to confine our leadership capacity to how we manage leadership questions of conference may lead to ANC abdicating its role and responsibility to the broader society and collapse. The collapse of the ANC's moral high standards and values will in no uncertain terms have a direct effect to the social moral being including values of the society we are trying to build. This will simply translate into selling our people out.

4.       Time has arrived for the ANC to lead the South African society and to exist beyond our personal interests and desires. What remains a greatest challenge though to achieve this is the absence of a coherent, strategic and decisive leadership. If this can be overcome by our organisation, the current political, social and economic challenges would at least be dealt with in a manner befitting to the majority people's of our country. 

5.       This paper will therefore be a contribution on some of the factors that must underpin discussions towards the conference and what the ANC and its members must be preoccupied with, pre and post conference.

HISTORY VERSUS THE FUTURE HAVE WE RESPONDED TO THE CALL TO LIBERATE BLACK PEOPLE IN GENERAL AND AFRICANS IN PARTICULAR

6.       The history of the ANC is known to be that which arises not only from the wars of dispossession, but to the general deprivation of the African people from all forms of development and participation. While wars of dispossession will continue to be what defines the history of the ANC and South Africa generally, the ANC can no longer use such history as a tool to convince people of its commitment towards the liberation of the people in general.

7.       The ANC will need to reflect at the extent to which it has politically been able to deliver not only the process towards liberation but the liberation itself of our people irrespective of creed and race. The celebration of the ANC's 100 years must be done within the context of reviewing the space travelled and the extent of impact done in the liberation of black people in general and Africans in particular.

8.       Part of these issues relate to whether the ANC has been able to deal with the wounds of colonialism and related race issues. To this end, it can be said that the decolonisation of our country and our people has not yet taken complete shape. The reality is that the resolution of the National           Question is still a dream that must be realised. This dream will only be realised when all social forms of decolonisation that have led to the massive deprivation and poverty that our people experienced, have been returned back to where they belong - the people.

9.       These will also relate to the tactical and strategic decisions the ANC has taken over the period of negotiations. The questions will remain, at what stage are those that were disabled by colonialism are redressed and how do we strike a balance between redressing and creating a non racial society where there is human dignity and prosperity? These are the central issues that must preoccupy the ANC in the process leading to the celebration of the 100 years of our existence.

10.   Therefore the constitution of the republic must then become the centre of transformation, redress and unification of the nation. There must be a conscious and calculated process of reviewing the constitution of the republic to allow effective redress processes while building unity within our country as a whole. This can only be realised when there is sufficient recognition of the majority people's contribution and the gravity of their challenges. The solutions to the challenges of resolving the national question will and should not be found outside of the people. Therefore this requires that at the centre of this process, our people must drive the agenda of the ANC to help the ANC realise its logical conclusions.

11.   This does not pose any threat in the existence of the ANC as a platform for the resolution of class, race and gender issues. However these require the ANC to resolve them before it becomes irrelevant to the cause of our people, Africa and the world. The ANC must therefore act consciously in resolving these challenges.

12.   For the ANC to do this, decisive leadership of the ANC from the front is required. There must be a systematic programme of engaging all communities with a view to decolonise them and deracialize societies from the racial quagmire they found themselves locked into. This will allow community members to openly engage about their differences and their difficulties relating to social transformation.

13.   The ANC will need to develop new mechanisms which will not be thumb sucked but engaged through an organic processes of the organisational renewal and development to allow it to respond to this question. This will address the main reality that faces the ANC today, of the changing nature of the characteristics of the broader society and its changing needs and wants. 

14.   These changing needs and wants continue to deflect the ANC from being seen as the consistent voice of the people, primarily because of the failure to understand and live up to the challenge of these changing needs and wants.

15.   Again, while this systematic process is taking shape, it may be important for the ANC to ask the question: do we have the required ability and capacity to drive and deliver the resolution of racial challenges to date?

THE HISTORICAL MISSION OF THE RESOLUTION OF SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC NEEDS OF OUR PEOPLE - HAVE WE DELIVERED?

16.   Our commitment from the beginning was that the ANC is a platform to facilitate political, social, and economic change. This was supposed to be done through structured process which was defined as the National Democratic Revolution. The leadership of this noble revolution was purportedly the working class because they are the ones who bore the major brunt of deprivation from all political, social and economic forms.

17.   The platform for the implementation of this noble programme was through state power. So as a minimum programme, the attainment of state power has been seen by many as a direct process through which the NDR can be facilitated and implemented.

18.   The cause of our national democratic change project was such that government of our people will at all costs be the one that not only facilitates but the one that distribute the wealth and the resources of the state equally to all.

19.   The state power has been won and the question remains what are the key strategic sites of delivery that we ought to have delivered on? The freedom charter provides the framework from which our attainment of state power must result. It is this framework that the ANC adopted in 1957, which makes the ANC to have made it a policy and its maximum programme.

20.   The leadership of the ANC can therefore not come back and renege by denouncing freedom charter principles as mere statements and no ANC policy today. What the ANC seeks to achieve in the future is the total realisation of the charter principles whose foundations are the people and not the dislikes and the likings of the leadership. These must then be the foundation of how we seek to transform the economy, while we put careful consideration on the extent to which our economy will respond to such.

21.   The commitment from the congress alliance as led by the ANC to the creation of a free country where all the components or principles of the freedom charter can be realised, was then a maximum programme of the ANC. The centenary of the ANC must then make a reflection at the extent to which we have dealt with these issues and at what stage can we justly claim that we are on cause with the implementation of the freedom charter?

22.   Save to say that we have inherited a skewed economy from the apartheid regime  and we have been able to turn the tired towards the creation of a flourishing economy, but can we be able to claim that while we have the flourishing economy our people have felt it? The definite answer is NO.

23.   It must be said that some of the people's needs and wants remain the same and have not yet been adequately attended to. These relate to issues such as bulk infrastructure, sanitation services, illiteracy and the general basic needs of the people. While these in the main have to do with the extent of how ANC delivers, it also has to do with the displacement of communities by the collapse of social fabric and therefore the dependency of people from the state rather than taking their own initiatives.

24.   This is not an accident of history; it has to do with the demobilisation of communities and the absence of massive community education initiatives that are designed to uplift the social conditions of communities and to affirm political clarity regarding the role and the obligations of communities in the broader revolution for their total liberation. These kinds of initiatives would have led to a society that is able to amass wealth of experience amongst members of the community to deal with social ills, leading to government providing support function to communities. Ernesto Guevara in his noble essay, Man and Socialism, acknowledges the role of education and democratic participation and he makes the case for revolutionary love, which must underlie the culture of peace

25.   For peace to be effected, communities must in their own space find comfort with their economic and social standing. So a conscious effort has to be placed in a programme of the review of our economic system as a whole to test as to whether the people are at the centre of beneficiation or they continue to be in the periphery. No amount of politics will make our people to understand their role unless; we provide strategic interventions into the economy and turn the tide towards their direct beneficiation process into the wealth of the country.

26.   We must explore possibilities of the state directly participating in partnerships with workers and communities directly. The review of the State Owned enterprises must test the extent to which the developmental state can be a reality. Through these partnerships, the state will have a direct intervention to the distribution of wealth. 

27.   These will not only benefit the people but it will make the state to have a direct control of the state resources and the people will benefit evenly. This will need the state to take some measures including those such as nationalisation with the aim to socialise the economy. However, the latter cannot happen when the state has no control of its own economy and wealth. The process leading to 2012 must help to unleash a better and greater capacity of the ANC to deal with these challenges with aim to benefit the poor and the marginalised.

28.   We must use our economy as the basic foundation from which our people get their total freedom. However, we must also encourage our people through strategic forms, to work for their freedom. This will only be achieved when we do not do rhetoric about it but when practical steps are taken to facilitate development.

THE CHALLENGE OF LEADERSHIP IN THE ANC AND THE ALLIANCE IN GENERAL

29.   Over a period of time ANC and its allies have provided leadership not only in the ANC but to the society in general. This was influenced by the "clarity of thought" in the leaders of the time and their resiliency and patience to the ideas of the younger generations and general members of society.

30.   This leadership was able to build out of it other generations that not only lead the ANC and society but that had capacity to engage any issue irrespective of the person or institution that engages with them.

31.   One of their principal founding backbone was to stick to the principle even when life was hard. This was also influenced by their dedication and commitment to the revolution and the people. It was because of their love of the people and they expected no return from the people with who they were providing leadership to.

32.   They remain coherent, decisive even in the midst of internal battles in their respective organisations and in the alliance as a whole. This decisiveness allowed them to interpret the relationship between things and people vice versa to the benefit of the revolution not to the benefit of individuals.

33.   At the height of colonialism, they remained intact; at the height of brutal apartheid butchers they remained strong, coherent and consistent. The principle was not tagged with a price at all. Even when such tendencies developed in the ANC and in the Alliance, they were truthful to the cause of the liberation of black people in general and Africans in particular.

34.   However, this cannot be said about our presence in the ANC today. There are many challenges that continue to express the Marxist principle of "negation of negations". The extent of leadership problems in the ANC and its allies is worst to the extent that leadership ANC leadership to society appears to be somewhat forced to the same societies. ANC has over the years earned this accolade; it has worked through hard struggles to remain the only sober voice of the people and the most oppressed.

35.   While the elections results of the past National and Provincial elections confirmed that the ANC still has support, we must remember that that support did not affirm the ANC as it was below percentage in the last elections. Besides, this cannot only be used as a yard stick to measure the role of ANC's leadership in society, because the ANC remains with traditional supporters who are honest and dedicated people with a history with the ANC.

36.   Can this be said about the generation of young people who were born during the 90's? Certainly not. Their patience and tolerance of the troubles and challenges of leadership of the ANC and its allies cannot surpass their needs and wants.  Therefore it cannot be said that the ANC will remain in power forever. What the process leading to the centenary must do, is to help us as members and as the leadership of the ANC to reflect on these challenges and examine the extent to which the ANC has managed to canvass people to burn the passes, to lead peaceful demonstrations in numbers, to rally people to make the country ungovernable, to rally young people on issues affecting them, to rally people behind their leaders (the Mandela campaign) and many others. We need to learn lessons from these and other strategic historical moments of truth that the ANC has led successfully even those that we did not lead successfully.

37.   At the height of these problems, there has been a concerted effort from the forces opposed to the agenda of the ANC to depoliticise the youth, with the aim of capturing their soul for the worst. The ANC Youth League has again lived up to its reputation of fighting this challenge. However the ANCYL will need to re-examine, the extent to which the new culture presented by the challenges of the ANC leadership affect it. This is so because, at the centre of the un-strategic debates of conference leadership outcomes, the ANCYL has been over time very involved but the question remained then and remains now - what are the strategic gains that the ANC YL wins in ANC congresses for the benefit of the youth in general. This does not seek to il advise that the YL does not win anything else except for leadership, but it suggests that in the overall, are young people of the ANC preparing themselves to locate their strategies strategically for the policy process of the ANC and beyond?

38.   The success rate of the turnout of young voters in all the democratic election is the reality that attests to the claim that ANC YL has been at the centre of the campaign to bring back the ANC in power with new strategies, tactics and forms of campaigns. While this claim may be made, what remains to be seen is how the ANC responds to the challenges of young people. The truth though remains that the success rate or the pace of delivery towards the youth in general, is one such a major challenge that ANC must exercise its decisive leadership to address it as we review the ANC's life and times in the 100 years of its existence.

39.   This is important because while there has been efforts to depoliticise the youth, there were also efforts to mobilise young people to be anti-ANC. This has been done through service delivery protests. Whether the issues rose in the protests are genuine or not it is not the issue, but the issue is the massive participation of young people in the service delivery protests and other issues relating to those.

40.   At the centre of this leadership crisis, is the absence of a consistent political education programme designed not only to induct new members but to refresh the existing cadreship. Many people today are members of the ANC and because they were part of the struggles that took place in the past, they now claim to be elected in the leadership of the ANC. The point being even though one might have participated in the liberation struggles that is not a guarantee for him or her to be a leader. Leadership is an exercise that requires no postponement at all.

41.   So, the 2012 conference of the ANC must be preceded by a robust engagement in structures and by the community generally regarding how the ANC can escalate delivery of services for all communities and thereby responding to the principle of liberating blacks in general and Africans in particular.

42.   The struggle in the process leading to the conference must be about the realisation of the centrality of branches in defining that which should be driven by the centre. Strengthening the branches will have a direct effect on how the ANC analyzes its performance not only in government but in the overall strategic goals of the National Democratic Revolution.

43.   There is also a need to work towards strengthening the alliance. However, the ANC has to realise that leading the alliance is not a reward but it is because the ANC embraces everyone in society including those with specific ideological views from the alliance. Therefore, there is a need for the ANC to realise this reality and to act decisively and to be forward looking in engaging with alliance issues.

44.   The question to ask though is whether or not our alliance is making strategic strides towards the development of the people as a whole with keen interests in the poor of whom the majority is black and African? This must be the central pillar of our endeavours to strengthen the alliance and must precede the debates in others alliance partners about state power. State power must be used as a tool to deliver the common strategic agenda and not anything else.

Lubabalo Molefe is an ANCYL NEC member writing in his personal capacity

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