SA Communist Party deputy general secretary Jeremy Cronin accused the Mail&Guardian newspaper of unethical conduct on Friday for publishing without his permission a paper he wrote criticising the African National Congress.
Cronin said the Mail&Guardian had published an edited version of a discussion paper on neo-liberalism written by the ANC’s political education unit ”and an edited version of my reply thereto despite the fact that I did not intend my reply for publication.
”The Mail&Guardian did not bother to consult or check with me in this regard. This is unethical conduct for any media institution.”
Cronin said this followed a trend started by the Sunday Times, although that newspaper ”had the decency to grudgingly concede in its article that my reply was not meant for publication”.
Cronin said organisations must be free to conduct internal debate without interference from the media, which would ”have the effect to shut down any space for such debate”.
Cronin apologised in August to the national executive committee of the ANC for saying in an interview with a foreign journalist that the ruling party was ”bureaucratising” along the lines of Zimbabwe’s Zanu-PF.
President Thabo Mbeki’s withdrawal from addressing the SACP’s 11th congress in July was thought to have been an expression of his displeasure with Cronin’s remarks.
M&G editor Mondli Makhanya said the debate contained in the published documents ”was about the future of this country and the future of this democracy”.
”All South Africans should take part in that debate, and it should not be confined to the ANC.”
Makhanya did not believe publishing the article without Cronin’s permission was unethical.
The documents had not been obtained from Cronin, and the Mail&Guardian had ascertained that they were genuine before publishing them. He believed it was in the interests of all South Africans that the debate take place in public. – Sapa
No one is infallible
from the Mail&Guardian, October 11, 2002
Jeremy Cronin argues that the ANC should be leading the anti-neo-liberal coalition.
Nationally and internationally, neo-liberal dominated globalisation is having a terrible impact on a wide range of strata, societies, regions and continents.
A wide range of forces from the World Bank through to the craziest anarcho-syndicalists and even the Taliban, in their vastly different ways, are reacting to the injustices and to the non-sustainability of the current global trajectory. That does not make all of them part of some global anti neo-liberal coalition. Indeed, one of the major features of the current reality is that responses, including diverse left responses, to neo-liberal globalisation are extremely fragmented. This should be taken up as a positive challenge for, not as a negative conspiracy against the African National Congress.
Through Nepad and through a wide range of other multilateral forums the ANC and the government have been playing a leading role in redefining global priorities. In doing so they have been challenging the core assumptions of neo-liberalism. Why accord to Jubilee 2000 or the Anti-Privatisation Forum the mantle of leading the anti neo-liberal coalition.
Moreover, if this Policy Education Unit (PEU) paper is to avoid the allegation that it is fuelling factionalism in our movement, then it must point to one single quote from any South African Communist Party or Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) programme, congress resolution, or press statement where it is said (or implied) that in ”their immediate tactical struggle, the ANC and our government are their most important enemies”.
For the past 20 years, and more, there has been a small ultra-left that has argued like this. This ultra-left now has positions of strength within the Anti-Privatisation Forum, to some extent within Jubilee 2000, and it has a minority voice within some Cosatu affiliates. But it is precisely this ultra-left that also identifies the (pro alliance) policies of the SACP as critical to blocking their anti-ANC agenda.
Instead of entrenching itself defensively in the face of this improbable global anti-neo-liberal ”coalition”, instead of speaking xenophobically about ”foreigners” in our midst the ANC must lead the broadest range of progressive forces domestically, regionally and internationally.
Having portrayed virtually all debate and even mildly critical engagement coming from the left as part of a ”global anti-neo-liberal” coalition, the PEU document then sets about disproving the ”allegations” hat the ANC and the government are pursuing neo-liberal policies. The fist move it makes in this regard is entirely unhelpful; the second is more pertinent and valuable.
In other words, ”by definition”, ”from its foundation”, and ”intrinsically”, the ANC, or its leaders, are incapable of accepting or even, perhaps, of being influenced by an policy (like neo-liberalism) that is unfavourable to the black masses. Case closed.
Unfortunately, the case is not closed. The ANC’s leadership role was not automatically accepted by ”the black masses” on January 9 1912. It took hard organisational work, active campaigns, and many ideological debates to put it on to the map. There were significant stretches in the ANC’s history in which it was moribund. After the mid-1960’s strategic defeat, the ANC’s pre-eminent role had, again, to be struggled for.
Moreover, the ANC (like the SACP or Cosatu) is not vacuum-packed, It is going to be influenced by many ideological and other currents.
You cannot, on the one hand, argue that the ANC encourages dynamic internal debate, and yet assert that the ANC leadership is and has ”always been right”. This ”declarative” infallibility kills debate and obscured the need for continuous ideological discussion, self-assessment and vigilance.
I agree that, by and large, the ANC and the government have maintained consistent anti-neo-liberal positions on all the key issues of the day, but that does not mean that any of us is inherently and be definition immune to neo-liberal influences. Unfortunately the PEU paper counterattacks with blanket allegations: ”international conspiracy”, ”foreigners in our midst”, ”counter-revolutionary”, ”targeted at the ANC and the ANC-led government”.
Dale McKinley may well have an agenda that identifies the ANC as the principal ”subjective enemy” of the revolution, But he has been expelled from the SACP (by all ”factions”, the ”important” and the ”less important”) for that reason. Andile Nkuhlu appears to have had a personal accumulation agenda while restructuring state-owned enterprises. He has been suspended.
There may be sell-outs and there may be ultra-leftists, but surely the real debates that we need to have within the ANC and across the alliance cannot be reduced to these terms?
(This article has been edited)