Mashele’s piece off-key

IN HIS article in Sowetan on August 22 2016 headlined, “EFF need to mature if they want to lead”, Prince Mashele writes inter alia: “Black South Africans have rejected the PAC and other black consciousness parties precisely because they don’t believe in the artificial purism of the extremist version of African nationalism.

“Even as they abhor racism, most black people believe that the future of SA lies in working together between blacks and whites.”

What does Mashele mean by “the artificial purism of the extremist version of African nationalism”?

The Sowetan editor should have asked Mashele to clarify what he meant by that phrase because none of that exists in either the founding documents of the PAC or the South African Students Organisation founding principles or manifesto.

Africans have not rejected the PAC and other black consciousness parties – this is just a thumb-suck on the part of Mashele.

The PAC and black consciousness groups are guided by the converging philosophies espoused by Robert Sobukwe and Steve Biko.

Sobukwe and Biko believed blacks and whites would live and work together as long as there was no group which dominated and exploited the other. Sam Ditshego, Kagiso