Embattled ANC being hoist by its own petard
Tactics that sank the Nats are being used again, writes Lesiba Seshoka
REFLECTING on current developments in South Africa, one is likely to conclude that all we see are ghosts from the ruling party’s past coming back to haunt it. As the adage says, history has a funny way of repeating itself.
In the ’80s, the United Democratic Front — the banned ANC’s surrogate inside the country at the time — had a popular slogan: “Freedom first, education later”. In this spirit, schools were continuously disrupted and many were razed in pursuit of freedom.
The anger was not directed solely at schools — those who did not agree with the direction the leaders were taking were called amagundwane (rats) and were necklaced, petrol-bombed or attacked in other ways.
Communities were encouraged to rise up against the apartheid government, which they did with distinction.
Fast-forward to 2016 and schools and universities are burning like in the old apartheid days, and Nelson Mandela is being cited by the arsonists.
They quote him as having said: “If the ANC government does what the apartheid government did to you, you must do what you did to the apartheid government.”
The arsonists argue that the present government is arrogant and similar to the apartheid government, “illegitimate” in that they both carried out massacres: Sharpeville in the case of the previous regime and Marikana in the case of the ANC.
Marikana is widely interpreted as the “ANC’s Sharpeville moment” in some quarters.
Old habits die hard. Those leading the rampage now are by and large the children of those who burnt the schools in the ’80s and who could not get an education.
As they rampage, they sing: “My father was a garden boy and my mother a kitchen girl.” By burning schools now like their parents did then, a vicious circle of poverty is being created as they too stand to become domestic workers and their children arsonists.
In 1987, the country witnessed what was, until recently, the longest and costliest in its history.
The National Union of Mineworkers, with about 360 000 black members, led by Cyril Ramaphosa, went on a violent strike that lasted three weeks, costing the Chamber of Mines about R250-million. Eleven people died, about 500 workers were injured, 50 000 were dismissed and 400 were arrested.
This came to be known as “the 20-day strike that broke the Chamber of Mines” in trade union circles.
In similar fashion, an NUM renegade, Joseph Mathunjwa, led a five-month platinum miners’ strike in 2014, resulting in a total revenue loss of about R24.1-billion for Anglo Platinum, Impala Platinum and Lonmin. Mineworkers lost about R10.6-billion in wages and 20 000 jobs were later shed.
In a way, #FeesMustFall is to the ANC government what the 1976 student uprisings were to apartheid. Sharpeville became Marikana and Mathunjwa’s 2014 strike is perhaps the equivalent of the NUM’s 1987 strike.
Mathunjwa was at one point an NUM branch leader. The communities rising against the ruling party demanding service delivery today are the same ones that rose against the apartheid government. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
The ANC’s nemesis Julius Malema comes from its own ranks as former president of its youth league, as does Zwelinzima Vavi, who is now leading the formation of a new trade union federation.
Malema had refashioned himself in the image of the late Peter Mokaba, a firebrand and also a former president of the ANC Youth League.
While he was still leader of the youth league, Malema often said the most ridiculous things, drawing applause and cheers from the ruling party’s top brass. At one point, he said he was prepared to kill for President Jacob Zuma, earning compliments that he was “a leader in the making”.
Former president Thabo Mbeki was a dead snake that needed to be buried, Malema said. Again, applause and laughter from the ANC.
It was only when party leaders felt he was no longer useful in their political battles that he was censured.
To attain freedom, the ANC mobilised everyone: religious groups, pupils, students, workers and every sector of society.
Today, religious leaders are rising again, as are students, workers and others, against the same party that taught them how to mobilise and fight.
When the South African Council of Churches recently expressed its disapproval of Zuma’s leadership, we heard an echo of what religious leaders said during apartheid.
Vavi’s drive to establish trade unions that are not aligned to the ruling party could mean he is marshalling forces just as Ramaphosa did when the ANC asked him to establish trade unions that would help to bring down apartheid. Vuwani is in ashes and so-called service delivery protests are a daily routine.
The ANC by and large faces problems of its own making. The methods and tactics used today are the same old ones.
Those who teach the youth in Vuwani and elsewhere the tactics of torching schools were themselves incubated by the ANC during apartheid.
There has been no proper debriefing since 1994, or counselling for those who committed arson and murder in pursuit of freedom.
In a sense, the ANC is getting a taste of its own medicine.
Seshoka, a former spokesman for the National Union of Mineworkers, is executive director of corporate relations at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. He writes in his personal capacity
Those leading the rampage now are by and large the children of those who burnt the schools in the ’80s
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