Celebrating Nelson Mandela Day always rejuvenates our people and rekindles their hopes that even in the face of adversities as a people, we have the tenacity to steer our country towards the attainment of the National Democratic Society. We particularly pay homage to the hidden champions of our province (KwaZulu-Natal) who work hard and tirelessly every day in the service of humanity without seeking publicity or catching news headline.
Like president Mandela, the ANC salutes those outstanding heroes and heroines whose daily deeds make us a great province. The commitment to serve the masses of our people remains the best honour to Madiba, a founding member of Umkhonto we Sizwe and the first president of a democratic South Africa. Our celebration this year has been unfortunately marked by disturbing tendencies seeking to displace the leadership role of the ANC.
Among these is the decision of the 14th National Congress of SACP, an ally of the ANC for decades in our Struggle for freedom. At the heart of this offensive against the ANC is a veiled threat directed at the ANC to recall President Jacob Zuma on one hand and also to accept that Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa should be his natural successor or else we risk losing national general elections in 2019.
There can be no doubt that Madiba would have found this entirely unacceptable. In his youth he harboured deeply seated suspicions against the SACP, but these were slowly transformed into an acceptance of the SACP as a valued partner in the Congress Alliance. This transition was to a large extent based on the personal friendships that developed between Madiba and some of the younger ANC leaders like Walter Sisulu and OR Tambo, with SACP members such as Ahmed Kathrada, Dr Yusuf Dadoo and Bram Fischer.
What Madiba experienced was not only the SACP’s clear policy position that while the ANC and SACP were partners in the Struggle, the ANC was nonetheless always the leader of the Alliance, but that these SACP leaders had also integrated this political reality in their personal relations with the leaders of the ANC. This is something that is undoubtedly betrayed by the current generation of SACP leaders.
The experiences of SACP and ANC members training together and going through the many hardships in the MK camps in Angola and elsewhere in Africa forged a personal bond that, while it was underpinned with political ideology, was that much stronger because of their shared revolutionary experience.
Without a doubt, what ANC and SACP cadres experienced and sacrificed as liberation soldiers in MK, also immeasurably strengthened the formal Alliance between the ANC and SACP, and contributed greatly to the decisions of Morogoro and Kabwe conferences, respectively.
Thus, the relationship between the ANC and the SACP was forged in the hard praxis of the liberation Struggle, and literally became a blood-bond as liberation soldiers of Umkhonto we Sizwe.
One of the greatest products of that blood-forged bond was Chris Hani. In comrade Chris, as MK chief of staff, we found the living incarnation as a strongly committed communist and just as strongly an ANC member committed to the Alliance leadership of the ANC.
Yet, even under these circumstances, the SACP never tried to undermine or usurp the leadership role of the ANC. This was not only true for exile, it was just as true for what happened in South Africa.
When comrade Nelson Mandela stood up in the dock and said: “I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die”, he knew that he was speaking for every one of his fellow accused - including comrade Kathy.
In the case of comrade Kathy, there was an opportunity for him to get a shorter (not a life) sentence if he was prepared to distance himself from some of the activities of the other accused. He refused and received the same life sentence. Years later, after he had been released from prison, he stated, not with bravado but with the greatest of humility, that as a communist and person of Indian descent he could never have distanced himself from the joint defence of his fellow ANC and African comrades.
This is the stuff that the Alliance between the ANC and SACP was made of, and it was because of experiences such as these - both in exile and inside the country - that the apartheid regime, no matter how hard they tried, could not drive a wedge between the ANC and SACP during the difficult years of exile and also during the negotiations for a democratic South Africa.
There are numerous incidents during Madiba’s long political career that he demonstrated that respect for him as an African leader and leader of the ANC was not negotiable. As a democrat, Madiba was always prepared to listen to a different point of view than his own - as long as it was conveyed to him with respect and did not undermine his dignity.
One could vehemently disagree with Madiba as long as you did so respectfully. When you did so, he would treat you courteously, but even if you agreed with him but did so in a disrespectful manner his wrath could be withering.
This was what FW de Klerk learnt at the Codesa 2 negotiations when he disrespected Madiba, after Madiba courteously granted him the opportunity to speak last. De Klerk tried to abuse the opportunity to deceitfully and falsely attack the ANC for stoking violence during the negotiations - while it was actually his regime that was sponsoring the violence of the Third Force to destabilise the negotiations.
He misjudged the kind of person and organisation he was dealing with. As soon as he finished, Madiba was on his feet, starting with the words: “Mr De Klerk thought that because I gave him the opportunity to speak last, I would not be able to respond. I am talking now!”
He then proceeded to remind De Klerk what he and his forefathers had done to the African people in South Africa, and how decent and generous the ANC was to engage with people with such an appalling history. When Madiba was finished, De Klerk was a severely diminished figure, who never recovered his former stature.
What was evident that day was how much Madiba cared about the respect he demanded to be shown - not because he considered himself as an individual to be so important, but because he was there representing the ANC and he was under no circumstances going to allow the ANC to be disregarded by anyone.
We in the ANC will not countenance any attempts to prescribe to us how we should handle our internal organisational affairs, nor who should be our democratically elected leaders. Similarly, we have not tried to prescribe to the SACP who they should elect as their leaders. The ANC was always, and must continue to be, the leader of the Tripartite Alliance. It simply cannot be that the SACP tries to usurp “equal status and decision-making powers in the Alliance with regards to deployment of members in senior and leadership positions in Parliament as well as in all spheres of government and their entities”.
As an ANC member who greatly respects the SACP’s contribution to the Congress Alliance and Tripartite Alliance, I care deeply for this Alliance. All of us should work hard to preserve it.
However, also as a member of the ANC of Albert Luthuli, OR Tambo and Nelson Mandela, I know that the dignity that was granted to them as the leaders of the ANC and therefore also the leaders of the Alliance has to be granted - now - to the democratically elected president and ANC leaders.
Not because of who they are as individuals, but because they are the leaders of the ANC, they have to be given unadulterated respect as the leaders of the Alliance.
* Zikalala is the chairperson of the ANC in KwaZulu-Natal, and KZN MEC for EDTEA.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.