The ugly truth of Tshwane
The ANC needs to nip in the bud the personality cult tendency that has been taking root over the past few years, writes Asanda Luwaca
AS the lifeless body of an innocent civilian caught in the Tshwane factional crossfire lay on a Mamelodi street this week amid burning tyres, the country was gripped in a turmoil of confusion.
A human life reduced to rubble and rubbish. Devalued, and left to die in a gutter. The chattering classes, fortunate enough to experience this from a distance in the comfort of their homes, wondered: is the unrest in Tshwane a result of the people revolting against the ruling party and its processes? A human life caught up in the politics of personality cults, factionalism and party patronage.
These violent scenes and images ensued after the ANC’s announcement of its mayoral candidate for the City of Tshwane, Thoko Didiza. Mainstream media has been closely following what has been loosely reported as the residents of Tshwane rebelling against this candidate, but very little is said about the culture taking root within the movement — a culture that needs to be nipped in the bud, or the ANC will face a “humiliating death if it does not clean up the culture that has been emerging from within it since 2009”, says ANC national executive committee member Joel Netshitenzhe.
As writer, nationalist thinker and political leader Amilcar Cabral articulated: “One form of struggle which we consider to be fundamental is the struggle against our own weaknesses.”
The ANC has had to grapple with internal weaknesses and still continues to wage a battle to forge unity among its members, and inevitably, society at large.
In a letter from prison to the Kabwe consultative conference in 1985, Nelson Mandela describes unity in the ANC as “the bedrock upon which the ANC was founded”.
The vision of a unified ANC was emphatically underscored in its 2012 policy document on organiBut sational renewal, which states that “the unity of the ANC is sacrosanct”. A unified ANC has always been the glue that held the nation together during the most trying times. But that glue is withering away, with the driving force behind political discourse displaying undertones of personality cult, factionalism and party patronage.
The term “personality cult” became popular after Soviet Union leader Nikita Khrushchev’s “secret speech” at the 20th Communist Party Congress in 1956, when he used it to explain the consolidation of Stalin’s personal dictatorship, the ensuing abuses of power and the extraordinary adulation of Stalin. When applied to modern politics, “personality cult” usually refers to the practice of the promotion and deification of a leader with the aid of modern mass media to generate personal worship in a society.
Zooming in on the recent travesty that has struck Tshwane, one would not have to look far to see the ugly head of personality cult being reared once more. Given the sharp divisions in Tshwane between ANC members who support regional chairman Kgosientso Ramokgopa and his deputy, Mapiti Matsena‚ the leadership of the party took a decision not to accept either of these candidates, in an attempt to unite their supporters.
the leaders’ efforts were in vain, as reports on the unrest show clips of residents rebuking the ANC and sycophantically pronouncing their allegiance to the current mayor, Ramokgopa.
Tshwane is one of the metros earmarked for serious political contestation leading up to the local government elections in August. Amid the realisation that Tshwane is facing the possibility of being run by the opposition, the ANC in that region is jostling to retain the 51% majority it has had for the past five years.
This is proving to be a mammoth task, as elements of factionalism have been at play.
Factionalism within the movement has always been bemoaned, and has been attributed to divisions in the party.
The ANC’s policy document on organisational renewal states: “The political life of the organisation revolves around permanent internal strife and factional battles for power. This is a silent retreat from mass-line to palace politics of factionalism and perpetual infighting.”
ANC Northern Cape provincial secretary Zamani Saul, in his 2012 piece “The Anatomy of a Faction: A Negative Tendency”, categorises types of factions: “spoils factions” and “ideological factions”, the latter speaking to how splinters within the movement arose from ideological differences.
In the ’50s, for example, Richard Selope Thema led a group that was opposing the interracial alliance the ANC had adopted with the Indians as well as the coloured and white communities in the country.
“Spoils factions”, according to Zamani, are “generally understood to be self-seeking groups, primarily concerned with accumulation and distribution of selective and divisible goods, such as party posts, funds, government appointments, and contracts”.
A 2013 report by the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection titled “Patronage Politics Divides
A unified ANC has always been the glue that held the nation together during the most trying times. But that glue is slowly withering away Fraying legitimacy of the party will ultimately result in an electoral decline, which will invariably lead to fewer ANC cadres being elected
Us”, diagnoses patronage politics as having a “corrosive effect on South Africa’s body politic. Because it fosters factionalism and social tension, marginalised sections of the community disengage from political institutions and processes.”
This results in residents resorting to “extrajudicial measures to register concerns and seek remedy” —what we have seen in Tshwane this week.
The events in Tshwane are an indication of a culture entrenching itself within the movement.
As Netshitenzhe warns: “If you have a movement that operates on the basis of factional impulses, without rationality or logic, then ultimately the mass of the people in the country will lose confidence in the organisation.”
It is paramount for the movement and its leaders and structures to reflect and introspect.
A fraying legitimacy of the party will ultimately result in an electoral decline, which will invariably lead to fewer ANC cadres being elected as councillors and members of legislatures.
If ANC members are adamant about transforming society, selfcorrection within the movement needs to take place.
As the ANC has resolved, members and cadres of the movement need to have academic qualifications to avert any form of desperation and need to want to use the ANC as a means of financial security and getting into bureaucratic positions.
In the 2001 book by Mac Maharaj, Reflections in Prison, ANC stalwart Walter Sisulu is quoted as having said: “Every organisation engaged in national liberation constantly has to isolate, analyse and search for solutions crucial both to its continued existence and growth, and to the success of the struggle as a whole.
“In a certain sense, the story of our struggle is a story of problems arising and problems being overcome.”
Luwaca works for the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection
Comment on this: write to tellus@sundaytimes.co.za or SMS us at 33971 www.sundaytimes.co.za