Some have said the national convention held on November 1 is comparable in significance to the Congress of the People or Codesa. Others have, laughably, dismissed it as a gathering of the rich or ”new elite”.
The delegates at the convention were overwhelmingly working class and poor. Those who were from the middle classes and better-off showed clear solidarity with these fellow South Africans who have yet to benefit economically from our democratic transformation.
Most promising was the convention’s unifying effect on the majority of South Africans. This has ensured that the new party, the Congress of the People, will be genuinely progressive around human rights, economic development and growth and all aspects of policy.
As the ANC leadership lurches daily from one contradictory pronouncement to another on economic policy, and focuses on the bureaucratisation and technocratic policy-tinkering proposed by those claiming to be socialists, the congress is a movement of those in society who want to see real change.
Not since Codesa has there been such a significant multi-party gathering outside of Parliament. The national convention also resembled the Congress of the People held in 1955 in that the process by which delegates were mobilised was through structures in the communities across our country.
Of course, the ANC and its allies were conspicuous by their absence. Since the convention, the alliance’s political leadership has futilely attempted to portray the congress as a bunch of elite spoilers, disaffected members of the ANC who did not get elected at Polokwane, and angry people.
The reality is that the ANC and its alliance partners represent the elite. This elite has built its wealth on a relationship with the state that has caused all sober-minded South Africans to think again.
The new oligarchs were not at the convention, they were at the Jabulani Stadium, listening to the president of the ANC call for the forced internment of young women who fall pregnant and for the removal of the rights of those criminally charged (except for himself, of course!). They also heard language akin to that of the Rwandan Interehamwe — political opponents are ”snakes” and ”cockroaches”.
It is ironic that the president of the ANC charges the new party with elitism when just a few weeks ago at a gala event he raised R30-million from the new captains of South African capital. It is also hypocritical of the ANC leadership to claim that leaders of the congress kept quiet about problems in the ANC during the Mbeki leadership period. Most of the current ANC leadership did exactly the same.
There may be anger among those former ANC members who have left the organisation to join the congress. But it is a justifiable anger. The current leadership of the SACP has factionalised the ANC. The ANC leadership has sanctioned vote-rigging in ANC conferences and it has allowed those in government office to sack anyone who does not agree with them.
It now promotes reactionary ideas. It has allowed tribalism, misogyny, threats of violence and intimidation to go unchallenged and in some cases has even tried to justify these.
That’s enough to make any revolutionary democrat angry. The tradition of the liberation movement is a social democratic one. This tradition is one of a revolutionary movement that is broad, recruits all democrats and engenders in them the values and principles of solidarity with the workers and the poor.
Instead, we have the increasing use of narrow, ethnic chauvinism as a legitimate tool of mobilisation by leaders of the ANC. We have witnessed a Stalinist style of factionalism that seeks to promote certain individuals, no matter what their track record is, in the name of the working class.
The members of the congress have decided to go out to South Africans with the following, simple message:
- We are all South Africans, some black, some white, some of mixed race and some of Indian, Asian and other ancestry, but we are all equal in our diversity.
- The Constitution, based on the Freedom Charter, is the founding document of our nation. We will defend these values and principles, with our lives if necessary.
- We will build a society based on the values of the Freedom Charter; of freedom, of solidarity, of non-racialism and non-sexism.
- No South African is above the law, whether he or she is a president or a pauper — we are all equal before the law.
- We will promote good governance, sound administration and policies that ensure we have a nation that works.
To truly liberate all of us, a concerted national engagement is now required, involving all sections of our society and recognising that failing to tackle poverty and unemployment will lead to increasing social dislocation. We need a participatory democracy that will re-energise the people of our country and lay the foundation for greater stability through growth, development and redistribution.
Phillip Dexter is a member of Shikota’s organising committee