Same old vilification of an individual by men in ANC alliance
There is something poetic about tripartite alliance partners the South African Communist Party (SACP) and Cosatu both being on song about the need for President Jacob Zuma to vacate the Union Buildings urgently. These same voices of reason were also in chorus while drumming up support for Zuma on the road to Polokwane.
One cannot help but observe how Blade Nzimande and his SACP cohorts are ruthlessly clear and decisive when they smell a political opportunity. The same goes for Cosatu.
It is the same cast of characters, with a few new faces, who are agitating 10 years later, as was the case in 2007, for the head of state to leave office before his term has expired.
Since when have the ANC’s succession politics been the central tenet of the SACP and Cosatu’s programmes of action?
Did they learn nothing from Polokwane and Mangaung, which each in turn gave rise to Cope and the EFF, while simultaneously decimating core Cosatu affiliates and haemorrhaging the labour federation itself?
Other than taking a continual stab at the state of the ANC and its president and his friends every other week, what else do the SACP and Cosatu stand for?
If the ANC does lose electoral support in the 2019 general election, as is widely predicted, what are the implications for its alliance partners? Have they even thought about this eventuality, or are the SACP and Cosatu so seized by the ANC’s succession that they have forgotten their mandates, constituents and why they exist?
Although there is no love lost between Cosatu, and by extension the SACP, and the newly launched South African Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu), they do have striking similarities and seem to share a common disdain for Zuma. At least that was apparent in Bloemfontein at Cosatu’s abandoned Workers’ Day rally and Saftu’s rousing gathering in Durban.
But what is disturbing is that the same men — Nzimande, Zwelinzima Vavi, Irvin Jim and others — who told us that Thabo Mbeki was a defective president, are retracing the steps they took in 2007. Save SA, too, is dominated by men, or at least its leading light, Sipho Pityana, is a man.
The ANC is often derided for being dominated by the same, ageing exiles, but what about the SACP, Cosatu and Saftu, even if the latter is a “new arrival”? They all seem to be suffering from the same curse, which is an obsessive focus on an individual. No good came of vilifying Mbeki and extolling Zuma, as time has shown.
As Nzimande sat next to a sullen-looking Zuma and Sdumo Dlamini at the rally that never was and Vavi and Jim got up to speak their parts in Durban, one question came to mind: where are the women revolutionaries? Where are the female voices in these movements; do women not matter?
A year into his second term, Zuma’s administration released a report about the state of women in the country and their participation in the economy. Its publication in August 2015 coincided with women’s month. The report focused on education, labour market, access to credit, land and property, poverty and inequality, and unpaid work.
WHERE ARE THE WOMEN REVOLUTIONARIES? WHERE ARE THE FEMALE VOICES IN THESE MOVEMENTS; DO WOMEN NOT MATTER?
One of its observations was that rural or nonurban women were worse off than their urban counterparts, with black and coloured women bearing the brunt of extreme poverty. Knowing this, would it be such a radical idea for the likes of Cosatu and the SACP to make that report, and countless others in similar vein, a living, breathing document instead of repeating 2007’s mistakes?
Phillip is news editor.