Channel ANCYL energy into ANC, says Lamola

Minister of Justice and Correctional Services Ronald Lamola. Picture: Jacques Naude/African News Agency (ANA) Archives

Minister of Justice and Correctional Services Ronald Lamola. Picture: Jacques Naude/African News Agency (ANA) Archives

Published Mar 1, 2021

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Johannesburg - Justice and Correctional Services Minister Ronald Lamola has said there should be a way of defining the autonomy of the ANC Youth League and channel its energy of new ideas into the governing party.

Lamola said the league has always come up with ideas that were not immediately adopted as the ANC position, such as the armed struggle and expropriation of land without compensation.

“When we proposed a position in our time, some of them were not positions of the ANC, such as the expropriation of land without compensation.

“There will be times it (ANCYL) comes with policies that are not ANC policies at the time,” Lamola said.

He was speaking during the virtual Umrabulo roundtable discussion on the ANC national general council document on youth.

“The issue that needs to be resolved is how then you manage such their issues when the Youth League comes up with new ideas. There is no way that it can come with a new idea which is already resolved as a policy at a particular point in time,” he said.

“A functioning ANCYL will from time to time even come up with ridiculous ideas. There will be a need for that nexus of defining the autonomy and how you then channel that energy of new ideas to help infuse the direction of the ANC,” Lamola added.

The former ANCYL deputy president said that when the youth formation was relaunched in 1991, there was a serious debate on how it could play its role in the ANC and the society as well as be structured and related to the ANC.

Lamola recalled that during their term, they had redefined the league at the congress at Gallagher Estate when they deliberated on the nationalisation of mines and expropriation of land without compensation, among other things.

The league had also stormed an ANC policy conference in Durban where they took issue with one of its outcomes as not a reflection of league discussions.

“That became the highest level of political indifference between the ANC and the Youth League leadership. We reached a boiling point or a level where the relationship completely collapsed in congress at Gallagher Estate.”

Lamola spoke about the league’s resolutions that adopted the “economic freedom in our life time” slogan centred on seven cardinal pillars.

“At the time we argued with the leadership of the ANC that it would be unwise for the ANC to suspend, expel or even disband Youth League structures because that would tame the ANCYL and make it lapdog… be a useless toy phone that would not be relevant in the interests of the youth to reproduce ideas for the ANC.”

Lamola said they had believed that for the league to advance and bring new ideas, it should bring policies that were not those of the ANC.

However, he said that both the youth and mother bodies had made mistakes when they handled the fallout at the time.

He said the league committed a mistake when the ANC leadership called them to order but they continued with a particular point and still argued in public.

“I believe we could have found a way of engaging on matters internally, particularly where we were publicly called to order or when the ANC had spoken in public on a particular matter,” he said.

The ANC had also made a mistake as it should at all times seek to guide but not use a sledgehammer approach among young people because that would deny them a forum to be innovative and creative instead of bringing new ideas.

“A scared young person will never bring new ideas to the table. The only way to bring new ideas and innovation is when you are free to think and express your view,” Lamola said.

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Political Bureau

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