Few lessons from the 100 years of ukhongolose (ANC) (2012)

The oldest liberation Movement in Africa, the African National Congress (ANC) is 100 years old.  This is a big deal as evidenced by the comments of  leaders from many political parties.  The President of  Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), Mangosuthu Buthelezi commented thus “I attend this celebration as a leader whose life story can not be read in isolation from that of the African National Congress. My destiny was linked to the ANC both by choice and by birth”.  The United Democratic Movement President Bantu Holomisa says that being in the ANC was a “learning curve” for him and that he feels “fortunate to still have that background”. The Acting Secretary General of the Congress of The People (COPE), Lyndol Shope-Mafole remembers growing up in the ANC as an “honour”.

I believe that it is useful to celebrate the past through a learning mentality and a willingness to reflect on the present.  One of the successes of the founders of the ANC has been the foresight and profound understanding that Africans are more than tribes and language groups.  They came out strongly against tribalism and formed for the first time an organization that united Africans across tribal and Provincial boundaries.  This is because tribalism has bedeviled many African countries and there was also going to be no way to later unite black people if Africans were divided.   This is why many of us were horrified when there were ANC members who wore “100% Zulu-boy t-shirts” before the Polokwane Conference in 2007.  We believed that this was in stark contrast to what the ANC traditionally stood for.  We were however consoled by the fact that those who supported both Presidential candidates came from diverse groups and therefore the demon of tribalism had not triumphed.

It is also worth noting that those who met to form the ANC were mostly the elite of the African community.  Beside the Chiefs, all the other leaders were highly educated.  A number of them had studied outside the boarders of South Africa, one of them being Pixley ka Isaka Seme, a lawyer who was educated at Columbia and Oxford University.  They valued education and I shudder to think of their possible reaction to what is being done to black children in this regard.  Would they take kind to the fact that in the Eastern Cape, a Province that fared worse with matric results, the teachers belonging to the South African Democratic Teachers Union (SADTU) are on a go slow?    One of these teachers  demands is for the Head of the Education Department to resign because he is not doing what they “deployed him for”.  I did not understand this statement from a SADTU leader until I learnt that this Head of Department had previously left the Department and  this teacher union pushed for him to be re-appointed.  Our nation can not sit idle whilst careless people play power-games with the future of our children.  From what I read I am confident that those dedicated teachers like Langalibalele Dube , ZK Mathews, Oliver Tambo who led the African National Congress in its hundred years would denounce SADTU’s action as being counter-revolutionary.

I am also touched by the selflessness with which the founders of the ANC and generations after them addressed issues of leadership.  History records that when there was a disagreement about who would best lead the organization, in the founding conference, a compromise was reached and all parties agreed to elect Dube who was not part of the Conference.    The participants refused to fight to get their way at all costs.  They knew that the unity of that organization was more important and could not be sacrificed because people wanted to claim victory of installing their preferred candidate.  The current history of the ANC seems to belie this spirit of the organization as factions are focused on triumphing even if it is over the carcass of what used to be a glorious Movement.  The Polokwane conference in 2007 was an example of this and Mangaung is threatening to be worse unless the attitude of the founders of the ANC re-manifest.

As we hope for the best we still feel proud to say: Happy one hundred years “Khongolose wa Bantu”.