‘ANC... will succeed in destroying SA’

INLSA

Former president FW de Klerk and his wife, Elita, at the FW de Klerk Foundation. Picture: Mujahid Safodien

Sapa

The ANC is unable to put its “national democratic revolution” into practice, but is capable of destroying the country, a Russian academic has said.

“The ANC cannot implement this (revolution) policy,” said Irina Filatova, a former head of African studies at Moscow State University.

“But it can destroy this country. There could be partial land reform, partial nationalisation of mines.”

But ultimately there would be control of the country by the state, and the control of the state by the party, Filatova said.

She was speaking in Joburg at a discussion hosted by the FW de Klerk Foundation on the recent ANC policy conference.

She said the ANC “obviously believes in this ideology” as it spoke of the unique nature of its developmental state.

“I think that the ANC is a bit lost about the second stage of the revolution,” Filatova said.

“In the 1980s it was so obvious what would happen.”

Apartheid would end, and it was assumed that capitalism would also end. But then came the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The more the economy failed, the deeper the ANC was going to dig in its heels, she said.

“The more failures there are, the more they will try to use various means – constitutional and unconstitutional – to keep their following,” Filatova said.

“And their following has been promised a great socialist future, and they would want it.”

Earlier, John Kane-Berman, executive director of the SA Institute of Race Relations, said the revolution was the “glue which holds the alliance together”.

It had its origins in political theory by Vladimir Lenin, who believed the wealth of imperial powers arose only from exploitation of their colonies, not from capital risk or good management.

SA had not been a colony since 1910. The white settlers remained but they were seen as the equivalent of a colonial power, and blacks as the oppressed, said Kane-Berman.

“So, it follows that white wealth arises from exploitation, and is therefore illegitimate and immoral.”

The revolution was taken on by the ANC after it was introduced to it by the SACP.

The ANC had been accused of betraying the revolution, but it had reached some milestones.

“The supremacy of Luthuli House over Parliament and the cabinet has been very firmly established – the party overrides the state,” Kane-Berman said.

More centralisation was also under way, in terms of control over provinces.

Kane-Berman said this was a long process marked by more interventionist policies, cadre deployment, weak public servants and more party control.

De Klerk, the last apartheid head of state in SA, was scheduled to be the closing speaker at the event titled “National Policy at the Crossroads”.

The conference is examining policies in the ANC and current political developments.