This is the world according to the MK Veterans Association (MKMVA).
The forces of imperialism, which is the highest expression of capitalism in its ruthless exploitation of the people, abhor liberation movements. Should such a movement transition into a ruling party, it is allowed to exist for roughly 20 years, then brought down through a host of dirty tricks; destabilising the country as a whole, or tearing the party apart from within are favourite tactics.
But never directly. The imperialists, like any good shadowy conspiracy, work through puppets and fronts. As they are now, in South Africa, as the ANC comes up on its 20th year in power.
One such front, MKMVA said on Tuesday, is South Africa First, the new political party introduced by former members of the association, ones who are now in deep disgrace. Agang, the emerging party formed by Mamphela Ramphele, is probably another. The great blue devil, the DA, may not be directly in league with the imperialists, but is working towards the same end: "to make sure the ANC does not win the election next year," in the words of MKMVA chairperson Kebby Maphatsoe.
As a body with much the same standing within the ANC as the ANC Women's League or the Youth League (if less sway than those), MKMVA was extremely unamused to see SA First claim lineage. In denouncing the new party as counter-revolutionary and worse, it gave an intriguing glimpse into its own thinking, if not necessarily that of the broader ANC.
"The formation of the so-called political party is part of the continued attempts by the enemy of our revolution and our people to undermine the collective efforts of our liberation struggles," Maphatsoe said on Tuesday, reading a statement approved by his association at an event facilitated by the ANC. "It is the wider strategy of the Democratic Alliance and the international monopoly capital to use agents provocateurs such as these ones…"
The enemy, MKMVA said, being imperialism, not only wants to destroy the ANC, it also wants to "return our country back to apartheid rule".
Flatly ignored
This is not the official ANC election platform, not yet, anyway. It is simply the worldview of a body within the ANC that is alternately portrayed as important guiding elders and flatly ignored.
But it is remarkable to see any part of the ANC falling back on what was, for more than a decade, the exclusive purview of opposition parties, and especially the DA: the politics of fear. Made all the more remarkable by the lack of success the opposition has had with that approach.
For the 2009 elections Helen Zille fronted a "stop Zuma" campaign with a simple message: given a two-thirds majority in Parliament, the ANC would change the Constitution to keep Jacob Zuma from criminal prosecution.
That was a softer approach than in the 1999 elections, when then-leader of what was then still the Democratic Party, Tony Leon, pushed hard on his own version of the two-thirds campaign, with dire warnings of what the ANC would do with such power.
Though the DA has seen an increase in support from voters, external critics and even high-ranking party insiders declared both those campaigns misguided. Proclaiming danger in a tone of near-hysteria alienates as many as it attracts, and maybe more. Recognition of that mistake seems to be at the heart of the DA's early campaign this year, the "know your DA" push that has seen it accused of rewriting history.
Playing on fear also allowed the ANC to make the connection between the "swart gevaar" (black threat) and "rooi gevaar" (red threat) of old, and the "two-thirds gevaar".
That link was made eloquently, in 1998, by one Kgalema Motlanthe, in a response to the first such election campaign.
Motlanthe went further, and tried to explain why a party would try to sow suspicion and hint at conspiracy ahead of an election. "Lacking a coherent or realisable vision for a better South Africa, these parties have fallen back on the promotion of fear," he said.
That is a sentiment the ANC may well see thrown back in its face over the course of the next year.