Remould fractured EC ANC
MY plea is for our sober and constitutionally elected ANC provincial executive committee led by Lubabalo Oscar Mabuyane to disband five regions – Nelson Mandela Metro, Joe Gqabi, Dr WB Rubusana, Amathole and Chris Hani in order to respond well to Nasrec's resolution of unity and renewal.
These five regions are not interested in renewing and uniting the ANC. They portray themselves as their own PEC, defying PEC orders. Their regional executive committees appear to be parallel PECs.
Dissolving them and putting regional task teams over them will deliver united regions in the interests of the people of their respective regions. Such RTTs must be given a mandate of uniting these regions and be inclusive in order to deliver a two-thirds majority for the coming 2019 elections.
A united ANC will never be defeated so the PEC must ensure that it unites these regions and indeed, with no fear, removes anarchists.
Let there be no room for self-serving or anarchy in the ANC.
Lastly, the reshuffling of Eastern Cape Exco is awaited but we respect the process of the PEC and the Premier managing it. Let the PEC manage it in order to ensure the Eastern Cape is a united province but do so with speed. The people of the Eastern Cape want to see PECs who are committed to the people and who account to the leadership of the ANC. Let there be no purging to those reshuffled. The ANC deploys and redeploys. — Viwe Sidali, ANC Mzwanele Fazzie branch
A mandate to honour
ONE cannot be true to oneself or others in the full stop of yesterday. Nor in the question mark of tomorrow. One can only be true to oneself in the “now” of the moment.
That space for me at this juncture in the party-political shenanigans in the country is a very large question mark.
But I had a “now” moment just this week. One should be free to walk out of a fish and chip shop, as I did, after the very occasional purchase of a ready-made meal, with a sigh of relief – one less necessary responsibility for the day . But no. He is neatly dressed and clean and descends upon me as I open the car door. I have no money in my bag to give to him. I feel bad. He is polite and after another try insists on directing my manoeuvre from the parking bay into the traffic. For a moment I consider handing him the small fish and few chips. But pragmatism entered the equation. I do not and drive off. My heart is distressed. I know that behind him on that street corner daily is an everincreasing crowd of able-bodied men, mostly thin. All wait for the offer of work.
Many of us know this and other street corners in the city that harbour groups who watch and wait for a vehicle to stop and to be asked to do some job or other to enable them to earn their day’s keep.
It has troubled me. The implications are immense.
Going to sleep this is on my mind. In waking I yet again remember the question, “What can I do practically to help?”
I recall a “now” moment of the 1980’s – and the words “They also serve who stand and wait”. These words seem so currently relevant for those men at the street corners waiting for chance opportunities to work.
I could not remember who wrote the words. I stopped at the home of a person I knew would recall the name.
We spent time chatting in the fellowship of faith. Inexplicably I began to weep. Not the soft kind. Shoulder wrenching tears.
To many with bloated salaries, busy with agendas of this country, for all their fine talk, the naïve and easily inflamed populace are merely to be used, misused or abused for programmed, ideological and strategic statistical purposes.
Yet the gold we need to bring to the surface is not hidden in ore- bearing rock to be crushed into nuggets of worldly value. It is in the hearts and lives of fine, upstanding, oftentimes simple people who have resisted affronts, theft of dignity and violence through decades of non-violent, justifiable, non-contentious challenge to power.
As South Africans we could choose to honour that irrevocable mandate. But we ignominiously keep silent while the charade becomes reality.
Truth is invariably the victim. Is that why it is in such short supply? — Denise Y. Fielding, via e-mail