Zuma doesn’t even understand why the ANC was formed

IT IS heartening to see all media outlets up in arms against ANC president Jacob Zuma for saying the ANC is more important than the country or the state. But this was long overdue.

When some critics, including the writer, accused the ANC of using state or government coffers to buy votes or woo voters by buying blankets and food parcels for them, Zuma arrogantly responded that government/state money belonged to the ANC.

Yet there wasn ’ t this animated condemnation of Zuma by the media as well as the public at that time.

What is the state that Zuma thinks plays second fiddle to the ANC? The state has four elements: the people, territory, government and sovereignty.

The government is an element of the state and acts on behalf of the state. The state predated the ANC and will continue to exist long after the ANC ’ s demise.

The ANC is leading the government, something that doesn ’ t give it a blank cheque to do as it pleases and brag that it has the majority of votes in elections.

A government may come and go but the state continues forever. There were two illegitimate governments – the United Party and the National Party – that came and went, but the country or state and its people are still here.

The state is composed of all the citizens, but all of them are not members of the government. The organs of the government are the executive, legislature and judiciary.

A few selected people run these organs of the government. Therefore, the state is a much broader organisation than the government, let alone the ANC.

Membership of the state is compulsory, but not that of the government or the ANC for that matter.

Zuma doesn ’ t understand why the South African Native National Congress (SANNC) was formed in the first place.

May I remind him and other like-minded ANC members with a warped logic like Zuma that the ANC was formed to address the landlessness and disenfranchisement of the African people?

The SANNC founders did not envisage the SANNC being more important than the country and its people since the raison d ’ être of the SANNC – which is now called the ANC – was to defend the country from usurpation by European settlers and secure a better future for its people.

The entity called South Africa, that I prefer to call Azania, existed when the SANNC came into existence.

The ramifications of Zuma ’ s paucity of understanding that the state is more important than the ANC will have a negative impact on SA ’ s sovereignty.

It is also evident why the ANC government enters into dubious treaties that threaten our country ’ s sovereignty, including being party to the Rome Statute and domesticating the Rome Statute into this country ’ s laws. I have always cautioned the ANC not to sign “free trade ” agreements and treaties that will have a negative impact on our sovereignty, but to no avail.

Currently this country has the US putting the proverbial sword of Damocles above its neck for having objections, and rightly so, to some aspects of the Africa Growth and Oppor- tunity Act (Agoa) trade agreement.

The US has given SA 60 days to sign an extended Agoa trade agreement or face the consequences.

When it comes to threats to SA ’ s sovereignty it is no longer a matter for the government or the ANC “majority ” but for the country as a whole to get involved, and that measure could be achieved by calling a referendum.

We should always insist on fair trade and not free trade and avoid signing these free trade agreements with superpowers such as the US, China, Russia and the EU member states.

We should take a continental or Pan Africanist approach.

Ditshego is a fellow at the Pan Africanist Research Institute

“We must insist on fair trade, not free trade