The ANC’s Policy Education Unit charges that the left is waging a counter-revolutionary campaign against the government.
One of the accusations made against us by some people within our broad democratic movement is that both the African National Congress and our government have betrayed the agreed goals of our national liberation movement. It is alleged that, instead, we have adopted and are imposing a neo-liberal programme in our country.
The charge of neo-liberalism constitutes the most consistent platform presented by the ”left” opposition in its fight against the ANC and our government. This South African ”left” has also sought to mobilise other groups, globally, to join in the campaign against the ANC and our government.
Interestingly, a significant number of the leaders of this anti-ANC offensive in our country are foreigners. This signifies the importance of this offensive to some international circles. These have determined that the defeat of our government is of strategic importance.
The left identifies the period of the triumph of neo-liberalism with the accession to power in 1979 of the British Conservative Party government led by Margaret Thatcher.
In the aftermath of the victory of the neo-liberal agenda globally, a loose international coalition of ”left” groups opposed to neo-liberalism gradually emerged. They have become identifiable as the ”anti-neo-liberal coalition”.
This coalition has launched an offensive against the ANC and our government, accusing them of implementing an anti-popular, neo-liberal programme in our country.
The international coalition engaged in this struggle describes itself variously as communist, socialist, anarchist and anarcho-syndicalist. It subscribes to the objective of the victory of socialism, loosely defined.
In our country, it is represented by factions in the South African Communist Party and the Congress of South African Trade Unions, as well as the Anti-Privatisation Forum, the local chapter of Jubilee 2000, and other groups and individuals.
They have determined that in terms of their immediate tactical struggle, the ANC and our government are their most important enemies. They see these as the principal obstacle to the achievement of their goals.
They assert that the ANC and our government are acting as the representative and instrument of the South African bourgeoisie, which they say seeks to dominate the African continent.
They go further to say that the soul of the ANC has been captured by a pro-capitalist, and therefore neo-liberal faction. According to the anti-neo-liberals, the ANC is controlled by a faction that is interested in its own enrichment. Necessarily, it has constituted itself as an elite group, cut off from and opposed to the people.
By definition, it is venal and corrupt, it uses the concept of black economic empowerment to build a corrupt system of self-enrichment, nepotism and cronyism.
The opponents of neo-liberalism argue that the dominant faction in the ANC and the government centralises political power and suppresses all dissent from the ANC and independent action within the state.
In this context, according to the opponents of neo-liberalism, these capitalist-roaders make open discussion even within the structures of the ANC impossible. Necessarily the left is suppressed. Patronage is used to ensure that everybody is kept in line.
At the same time, so the anti-neo-liberals argue, this dominant capitalist faction works to destroy the independence of all democratic formations outside of the ANC.
According to the coalition against neo-liberalism, the incumbent leadership in our movement and the government works hard to surround itself with praise-singers.
This opens these leaders to abuse of power and the exercise of absolute power. It is then asserted firmly that our leaders are corrupted by power.
All the foregoing makes it possible for the coalition to convince itself that, in our country, its principal enemy is the ANC and our government.
The anti-neo-liberals have arrived at the position in terms of which they must wage a counter-revolutionary struggle against the ANC and our democratic government.
In this regard, in many respects, these opponents of neo-liberalism echo and campaign on the same political platform elaborated and publicly presented by the political representatives of colonialism, white minority rule and white capital.
We must make the point that, throughout its history, the ANC has been the representative of the black people, the black working people and the poor of our country. Intrinsically, it had and has a responsibility to fight against any policy and programmes that seek further to impoverish and disempower the masses who constitute its base.
Any position contrary to this would, inevitably, lead to the destruction of the ANC. To remain in power in these circumstances would require the use of repressive state power to deny the people the possibility freely to express their views about the ANC.
The fact is that the ANC has not used state power to conduct a campaign of terror against the people. It has not done anything to stop anybody from freely expressing his or her view and will.
In all the elections held in South Africa since 1994 the masses of our people have confirmed their confidence in the ANC.
On the other hand, if this coalition is wrong in characterising the ANC as neo-liberal, the question will arise — whose interest do they serve?
It is critically important to understand the nature of the ANC as a movement for national liberation. The ANC has never been a communist party. It does not have a historic responsibility to overthrow and destroy the capitalist system.
At the ANC’s national conferences we decided that we would maintain ours as a mixed economy and that we would not approach the matters of both nationalisation and privatisation from an ideological position. The ANC and our government have respected and kept to these decisions.
Accusations that the ANC and our government are pursuing neo-liberal policies are a falsification of reality and represent behaviour that is informed by absolute disrespect for truth and morality. They are typical of counter-insurgency tactics used by repressive forces against struggling people deliberately to spread misinformation and outright lies to create the condition for the defeat of these masses.
The ANC and our government have not surrendered to the rule of the market; worked to create a minimal state; to reduce its developmental role or to demoralise our people.
Among other things, we have increased and strengthened the public development institutions, strengthened the system of governance generally, increased its accountability to the people and strengthened the social security safety net that seeks to alleviate poverty.
The ANC and our government have not embarked on any massive privatisation driven by a neo-liberal commitment to the destruction of the state sector.
The ANC and our government have not sought to curb, weaken or destroy the trade unions.
Three questions arise from all this. Why does the anti-neo-liberal coalition tell blatant lies about the ANC and our government?
Why has the coalition of anti-neo-liberal groups taken the decision to wage a war against the ANC and our government, and the rest of the progressive forces of our country? Whose interests does the anti-neo-liberal coalition serve?
Let us answer the last question first. In our country, those opposed to the ANC and the government are some of those who benefited from the system of colonialism and apartheid. These seek to perpetuate the legacy of white privilege and the racial and gender disparities to which the ANC is opposed.
These reactionary forces count on the Democratic Party to lead and represent them in the struggle to achieve these goals. Externally, there are other forces that are determined to limit our capacity to act independently in the interest of our people and the peoples of Africa. Some of these are hard at work trying to determine who shall lead us and what our policies should be.
Objectively the anti-neo-liberal coalition is working in support of these domestic and international forces of reaction.
The very fact that they are forever silent about the forces of reaction that are opposed to our movement, that they do not confront these in daily struggle answers the question definitely: whose interests do they serve?
The anti-neo-liberal coalition does this as an indication of its determination to carry out a counter-revolutionary offensive against the democratic revolution. As part of its armoury, this coalition encourages anarchy and the breakdown of discipline among the members of our organisation.
It works to destroy the cohesion of our movement by creating the possibility of subverting our democratic process from within, to corrode the ANC from within, contributing to its campaign to defeat our movement.
Together with its neo-liberal allies, it tells deliberate lies about the destruction of internal ANC democracy, suppression of dissenting views and a determination to marginalise and destroy ”the left”. It blames all this on our national leadership.
The anti-neo-liberal coalition hopes that it will trample over the fallen colossus, the ANC, and march on to a victorious socialist revolution, however defined. Better still, it hopes that by engaging in all manner of manoeuvre, including conspiring about who its leaders should be, it can capture control of the ANC and use it for its purposes.
To achieve these objectives, the anti-neo-liberal coalition is ready to treat the forces of neo-liberalism as its ally. Therefore it joins forces with them, together to open fire on the ANC and our government.
The ANC and the masses of our people, who are battle-hardened in the struggle to defend their movement, will defeat this unholy alliance. They will also defeat all attempts to impose a neo-liberal programme on our country.
This is an edited version of the original document. See Jeremy Cronin’s response No one is infallible