Zuma calls for unity in honour of Tambo
PRESIDENT Jacob Zuma extended an olive branch to his detractors yesterday as he delivered the keynote address at Oliver and Adelaide Tambo’s graveside during a wreathlaying ceremony in Benoni, Ekurhuleni, yesterday.
Zuma said that Tambo, the ANC’s longest-serving president, at one stage faced revolt by “leading comrades” of the movement.
“Let us (today) do things differently. Let us work on solutions and not problems. Let us be comrades, let’s unite. Let us not see enemies among ourselves. Let us not be divided.”
He said Tambo faced internal problems when “leading comrades” accused him of being a communist, who was no longer “following” the incarcerated nationalist Nelson Mandela, “and therefore wanting to take over the leadership of the ANC”.
“It is our duty, we who are in the organisation today, the ANC, the alliance…
“If there are difficulties, let us address them comradely and with dignity because if we don’t, the task to lead this country will be more difficult.” He described Tambo as an “exceptional leader of our movement”.
“I think it was in Morogoro where Oliver Tambo said: ‘Don’t listen to those who come closer to your ear with venomous gossip, trying to tell you this and that.
“They are the ones who do not like the organisation’.’’
He admitted the ANC risked losing relevance, like other liberation movements.
“Some (movements) they split, some they change the posture of their government. What it does, it pests (sic) those organisations to be what they are meant to offer. I believe our movement has reached that point.”
ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe says the party needs to look back into its history if it wants to chart a way into the future.
This comes amid calls for its leadership to step down over allegations of state capture and the party’s poor performance in recent elections.
Mantashe arrived two and a half hours late to his Oliver Tambo memorial lecture in Delft, which coincided with the birthday of the longest-serving ANC president.
He said those calling for President Jacob Zuma to step down, the removal of the party’s top six leaders, and for ANC chief whip Jackson Mthembu to be purged were not steeped in the culture of the ANC. Mantashe said there were diverse views in the ANC and a reaction to that should not lead to expulsion.
He acknowledged the ANC was going through a “difficult period” but said this was not its first, or its last, crisis.
Mantashe said the ANC in exile faced similar calls for its leadership to step down in the mid-1960s when Chris Hani penned a memorandum, which directly led to the Morogoro Consultative Conference of 1969. “Tambo gave a reflection on the role of leadership when it was facing such a crisis. He led the ANC for 30 years… during the period of lows and highs.”
While the writers of history showed a bias towards Nelson Mandela, Mantashe said Tambo was “head and shoulders” above all the leaders.
“He brought exceptional attributes. Celebrating his life is not about eulogising him, we memorialise those who represent the best attributes among us.”
In front of a small crowd, including some local ANC leaders and councillors, Mantashe said those in the party’s leadership positions had to learn how Tambo was characterised in the liberation movement.
“He was the embodiment of understanding the organisation and its cadre.”
The ANC’s dismal performance in local government elections in which it declined 8.44 percent to only 54.49 percent nationally posed a danger it could lose its place as a liberation movement, according to Mantashe. He said for the ANC to remain relevant it had to recruit the best brains.
“It is critical that we attract the best brains into the ANC and the State. Factions have imprisoned us, we can’t move… decisions are often taken by factions.” Without mentioning names, Mantashe said individual leaders of the ANC had to be beyond reproach.
Mantashe criticised those in the ANC who justified excesses and “quoted themselves through apartheid leaders” and in the process gave up the right to call themselves revolutionaries.
Referring to former ANC treasurer-general Moses Kotane, Mantashe said he was incorruptible, “not only in his politics, but in his personal life”.