Disciplining members of the African National Congress (ANC) was an internal matter, the ruling party said on Monday after the Freedom Front Plus (FF+) reiterated its call for action against the party’s youth league.
”Matters within the ANC are dealt with internally, no one from outside can instruct us to discipline our members … if it warrants that [discipline] we will do so without any instruction from any other party,” said ANC spokesperson Brian Sokutu.
He reiterated that the ANC’s position on race was clear, that it subscribed to a principle of a non-racist and non-sexist society and was therefore representative of all races.
This was in response to a call from the FF+ for the ruling party to discipline its youth wing for hate speech and inciting racism.
Its parliamentary spokesperson on sport, Anton Alberts, in a statement said this was necessary ”in the name of peace and racial harmony in South Africa”.
It followed comments made by ANC Youth League spokesperson Floyd Shivambu in the Rapport newspaper.
According to Alberts, Shivambu was quoted as saying the majority of white people were racist and they did not celebrate the victory of 800m gold medallist Caster Semenya because she was not white.
”Hitler continuously made racist statements about the Jewish people before World War II, which was discarded as innocent propaganda.
”Eventually it led to a formal programme of ethnic cleansing. That is why these racist comments against the white minority in South Africa cannot be discarded so lightly,” Alberts said.
”The sounds made by these young people, appear more and more to be the official statements of the ANC itself and [it] is time now for the ANC to indicate clearly and firmly what their views are about white people in South Africa.”
The party said Shivambu’s statement as well as comments by youth league president, Julius Malema, about race in the Semenya issue ”spread suspicions and divisions and incited racial polarisation”.
Alberts called on the ANC leadership to bring their youth in line with President Jacob Zuma’s policy of reconciliation. — Sapa