Disfigurement of the ANC tarnishes its heroes’ legacy

Ahmed Kathrada is among the ANC veterans who want to meet President Jacob Zuma. Picture: Nokuthula Mbatha

Ahmed Kathrada is among the ANC veterans who want to meet President Jacob Zuma. Picture: Nokuthula Mbatha

Published Nov 27, 2016

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The ANC veterans are the bearers of the organisation’s values and history and their stance is a major blow, writes Mcebisi Ndletyana.

Sitting just about a month ago, the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) had what must have been an unpleasant experience. It began its interview process on a jubilant note. The thrill came from realising black advocates were among the applicants for positions at the high court in Pretoria.

These were Gcina Malindi and Takalani Madima. That was apparently uncommon. The black silk prefers the lucrative private practice to the poorly paying bench. This is understandable for people who are, in most cases, the first generation of middle-class in their families, with onerous financial obligations that encompass an extended family.

The ending of the JSCs interview process, however, was a painful disappointment. Malindi, whose application had earlier attracted praise, was not appointed.

The rebuff was not based on merit. Malindi is a fine lawyer. It was his politics, especially his association with the ANC, that caused his rejec-tion. For anyone familiar with South Africa’s history, such reasoning is shocking. Writing in the City Press on October 16, esteemed advocates Muzi Sikhakhane and Thembeka Ngcukaitobi correctly castigated the outcome as ill-considered, if not downright absurd.

Political involvement, as Sikhak-hane and Ngcukaitobi pointed out, has never been an impediment to ascending to the bench.

Our Constitutional Court once boasted numerous political notables, including Arthur Chaskalson, Pius Langa, Albie Sachs and Dikgang Moseneke. Activism had drawn them to the bench to fashion the rule of law. Once on the bench, they didn’t renounce their political beliefs, but simply imparted them into the law to create a just society. And, throughout their superb public service, we never doubted their sense of fairness and commitment to justice.

In Malindi’s case, however, the dominant view at the JSC was that his struggle credentials would bring harm to the courts. The fear was he would be partisan, in favour of the ANC, which would entail unfairness and even distortion of the law. This is quite telling. Today’s ANC is viewed differently, even by the progressives who make up the JSC.

Previously, ANC membership implied a conscientious individual, a guardian of the revolution with the country’s interests at heart. Wielding that membership today makes people jittery. They don’t trust an ANC member, thinking that you’re likely to care more about yourself than the country, and be uncouth while at it.

Actually, the difference is beyond perceptual. Malindi was also treated differently on account of his ANC membership. He was “the different other” who, albeit technically quali-fied, represented a threat because his organisation doesn’t always uphold the law.

Sikhakhane and Ngcukaitobi put it quite succinctly: “Because of the real and perceived sins of the ANC and its leaders, the moral and image crisis of the former liberation movement is causing many in our society to question the integrity of people such as Malindi, who joined the struggle as members of the ANC.” This is the measure of how much the ANC has been disfigured - it even tarnishes people’s reputation!

Nothing illustrates the ANC’s disfigurement recently than its enabling of Solidarity to feign progressiveness. Solidarity is an exclusively white, predominantly Afrikaner organisation.

It pretends to be a civil rights movement, but is actually a white supremacist body. Most of its efforts are spent fighting inclusion, redress and maintaining white privilege. Solidarity, in other words, is reactionary.

Last July, however, Solidarity had a rare moment of deception. It took the public broadcaster to court for firing eight journalists. Among them were white journalists whose plight particularly interested Solidarity, but the organisation decided to combine all eight, including black journalists.

In this particular case, Solidarity stood for freedom of speech. The journalists were fired on the instruc-tions of Hlaudi Motsoeneng, an ANC stooge. Motsoeneng had barred the public broadcaster from covering public protests.

The journalists disagreed, denoun-cing that policy as censorship.

For opposing censorship, by an organisation that supposedly provides unrestrained access to information, the journalists were suspended. When they communicated their suspension to other media outlets, they were then fired. In communicating reasons for their suspension, reasoned SABC management, the journalists had seemingly violated conditions of their employment, which apparently bar them from sharing internal information with outside parties.

The Labour Court correctly found in favour of the eight journalists.

It reasoned that the SABC had violated their freedom of speech. Solidarity won them the victory, affirming the right to free speech.

It managed to pose as a progressive organisation because the ANC is frozen in a moment of moral lapse.

Motsoeneng is Jacob Zuma’s proxy, handled directly by the Minister of Communications, Faith Muthambi. He does what Muthambi tells him. She could have stopped him from trampling on freedom of speech, but didn’t. That’s because she approved, together with the rest of the ANC leadership. They’d rather enable a reactionary body that is Solidarity to fake progressive credentials, than simply do the right thing.

Worse than abetting Solidarity’s posturing is forcing ANC stalwarts out of retirement to talk to them. This reaffirms the failure of both collective leadership and the ANC’s own constitutional bodies to exercise accountability on top office bearers.

It has taken veterans like Andrew Mlangeni and Ahmed Kathrada to plead with the ANC to rectify its own wrongs. Theirs is simply a moral appeal, based on their venerate stature. They have no coercive powers, but hope the ANC still has sufficient reverence for them to allow itself to be persuaded.

Unfortunately for the ANC stalwarts, this ANC is deaf to moral appeals. It built its power not on moral authority, but solely on the control of power and disbursement of patronage. That is why Zuma’s henchmen denigrate any moral figures, as if to suggest that no-one in society stands for anything noble.

Consider a statement by a certain Mpho Masemola, who’s apparently deputy chairperson of some grouping that calls itself Association of Ex-Political Prisoners. Responding to Kathrada’s public appeal that Zuma step down, following his violation of the oath of office, Masemola said Kathrada was one of the “counter-revolutionary wolves masquerading as saviours to our democracy. They are nothing but veteran counter-revolutionaries mouthing the poison of their evil masters.”

In other words, ANC veterans, men and women of conscience, are unlikely to make any headway with Zuma’s ANC. They hold no influence over Zuma nor do they speak a language he understands.

He repeated his unwavering commitment to impropriety on Wednesday in Parliament - two days after meeting ANC veterans. Zuma is not keen on a judicial commission of inquiry revealing the entire truth about state capture. Instead, he wants to bury the State of Capture report.

Zuma is fighting his own problems. ANC veterans shouldn’t be disappointed if they fail to change his mind now. Their standing-up alone is a major blow to the ANC.

They’re bearers of ANC history and values. People know who they are and believe them when they say Zuma’s ANC is not the authentic liberation movement of old. Voters will exact punishment as they did on August 3.

Veterans have de-legitimised the ANC!

* Ndletyana is an associate professor of politics, based at the Institute for Pan African Thought and Conversation, University of Johannesburg.

** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.

The Sunday Independent

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