The Mail & Guardian is not alone in admiring Archbishop Desmond Tutu (”Some amongst us admire the Arch”, January 28). There are many in the African National Congress who admire him too.
As an organisation, the ANC has often paid tribute to his contribution to the struggle for democracy in South Africa and to his continued importance to our national life.
In the midst of the ”Tutu-Mbeki Debate” — which many sought to personalise and portray as acrimonious — we have resolutely held firm to the high regard in which we hold Tutu. And continue to do so.
The M&G editorial claims that the ANC, in the second article of its series on the sociology of public discourse, ”penned a venomous, though intellectually feeble, attack on Tutu”. You may have found it intellectually feeble. That’s fine. But we would want to take issue with your assertion that the article aimed to ”vilify and question Tutu’s bona fides”. It did no such thing.
We also contest your assertion that President Thabo Mbeki’s response to the statements made by Tutu in his Nelson Mandela Foundation speech in November last year constituted an ”attack” on Tutu. In his online letter at the time, Mbeki responded to some of the assertions that Tutu had made in his speech — assertions that the ANC believed were inaccurate. At no point in his response did Mbeki cast aspersions on Tutu’s character, his integrity or his contribution to the struggle.
In a statement at the time, the ANC said that while the organisation disagreed with a number of Tutu’s comments, it regarded him ”as one of many leaders in this country who have sought and continue to seek to further the interests of the poor and oppressed. We will continue to regard you as a respected leader within our society whose contribution to the life of this country is highly valued.”
In introducing the notion of ”icons” in our thesis on public discourse, we indicated that we remain firmly of this view.
We argued that there are some people in our country on whom the title of ”icon” has been conferred by those who stand opposed, either to the principle or the direction of, fundamental transformation. The reason, we suggest, why certain people, and not others, are thus anointed is that those opposed to transformation have identified in these ”icons” views that align, or appear to align, with their own. The purpose of identifying certain people as ”icons” is to render them immune from public criticism.
In our article we emphasised, however, that Tutu did not confer on himself the status of an ”icon”. Nor did he do anything to encourage anybody to accord him that status.
”[O]ur observations about ‘icons’ do not constitute a comment about what the archbishop might have done or not done consciously or subconsciously to urge others to anoint him an ‘icon’. They reflect on those who, for whatever reason, have awarded the archbishop this status, with no prompting or any other form of involvement in this project by the archbishop himself,” the ANC said.
We do not claim that Tutu aligns himself with those opposed to transformation, nor do we suggest that Tutu is a hapless puppet, bound to do the bidding of others. Instead, we draw attention to a common practice in public discourse in the democratic South Africa to hold up the views of certain individuals as beyond challenge, merely because these individuals have been accorded ”iconic” status. These views just happen to serve a particular political and ideological agenda.
Our article cites a number of instances in which the ANC has been told, quite bluntly, that it has no right to challenge these views simply by virtue of the ”status” of the person who has expressed them.
This thesis has nothing to do with the character of Tutu or his continuing contribution to building a democratic nation. It has to do with a sociological phenomenon that we have observed. If people find our thesis ”intellectually feeble” we would urge them to explain, to pick holes in it and to debate it.
It is particularly regrettable that when the ANC takes up Tutu’s invitation to ”debate more openly” — rationally, not using emotive language — it is so roundly condemned for displaying intolerance. When the ANC seeks to stimulate debate within the organisation and society, about what we consider to be important matters of our transition, the M&G tells us that ”the ANC no longer debates”. We are debating, dammit. But are you?
Smuts Ngonyama is spokesperson and head of the Presidency for the ANC