Stand against Zuma is a blow
Veterans are the bearers of values and history, writes
service, we never doubted their sense of fairness and commitment to justice.
In Malindi’s case, however, the dominant view at the JSC was that his struggle credentials would bring harm to the courts. The fear was he would be partisan, in favour of the ANC, which would entail unfairness and even distortion of the law. This is quite telling. Today’s ANC is viewed differently, even by the progressives who make up the JSC.
Previously, ANC membership implied a conscientious individual, a guardian of the revolution with the country’s interests at heart. Wielding that membership today makes people jittery. They don’t trust an ANC member, thinking that you’re likely to care more about yourself than the country, and be uncouth while at it.
Actually, the difference is beyond perceptual. Malindi was also treated differently on account of his ANC membership. He was “the different other” who, albeit technically qualified, represented a threat because his organisation doesn’t always uphold the law.
Sikhakhane and Ngcukaitobi put it succinctly: “Because of the real and perceived sins of the ANC and its leaders, the moral and image crisis is causing many in our society to question the integrity of people such as Malindi, who joined the struggle as members of the ANC.” This is the measure of how much the ANC has been disfigured – it even tarnishes people’s reputation.
Nothing illustrates the ANC’s disfigurement more than its enabling of Solidarity to feign progressiveness. Solidarity is an exclusively white, predominantly Afrikaner organisation.
It pretends to be a civil rights movement, but is actually a white supremacist body. Most of its efforts are spent fighting inclusion, redress and maintaining white privilege. Solidarity is reactionary.
Last July, however, Solidarity had a rare moment of deception. It took the public broadcaster to court for firing eight journalists. Among them were white journalists whose plight particularly interested Solidarity, but the organisation decided to combine all eight, including black journalists.
In this particular case, Solidarity stood for freedom of speech. The journalists were fired on the instructions of Hlaudi Motsoeneng, an ANC stooge. Motsoeneng had barred the public broadcaster from covering public protests. The journalists disagreed, denouncing that policy as censorship.
For opposing censorship, by an organisation that supposedly provides unrestrained access to information, the journalists were suspended. When they communicated their suspension to other media outlets, they were fired. In communicating reasons for their suspension, reasoned SABC management, the journalists had seemingly violated conditions of employment, which apparently bar them from sharing internal information with outside parties.
The Labour Court correctly found in favour of the eight journalists.
It reasoned that the SABC had violated their freedom of speech. Solidarity won them the victory, affirming the right to free speech.
It managed to pose as a progressive organisation because the ANC is frozen in a moment of moral lapse.
Motsoeneng is Jacob Zuma’s proxy, handled directly by the Minister of Communications, Faith Muthambi. He does what Muthambi tells him. She could have stopped him from trampling on freedom of speech, but didn’t. That’s because she approved, together with the rest of the ANC leadership. They’d rather enable a reactionary body that is Solidarity to fake progressive credentials, than simply do the right thing.
Worse than abetting Solidarity’s posturing is forcing ANC stalwarts out of retirement to talk to them. This reaffirms the failure of both collective leadership and the ANC’s own constitutional bodies to exercise accountability on top office bearers.
It has taken veterans like Andrew Mlangeni and Ahmed Kathrada to plead with the ANC to rectify its own wrongs. Theirs is simply a moral appeal, based on their venerate stature. They have no coercive powers, but hope the ANC still has sufficient reverence for them to allow itself to be persuaded.
Unfortunately for the ANC stalwarts, this ANC is deaf to moral appeals. It built its power not on moral authority, but solely on the control of power and disbursement of patronage. That is why Zuma’s henchmen denigrate any moral figures, as if to suggest that no-one in society stands for anything noble.
Consider a statement by a certain Mpho Masemola, who’s apparently deputy chairperson of some grouping that calls itself Association of Ex-Political Prisoners. Responding to Kathrada’s public appeal that Zuma step down, following his violation of the oath of office, Masemola said Kathrada was one of the “counter-revolutionary wolves masquerading as saviours to our democracy. They are nothing but veteran counter-revolutionaries mouthing the poison of their evil masters.”
In other words, ANC veterans, men and women of conscience, are unlikely to make any headway with Zuma’s ANC. They hold no influence over Zuma nor do they speak a language he understands.
He repeated his unwavering commitment to impropriety on Wednesday in Parliament – two days after meeting ANC veterans. Zuma is not keen on a judicial commission of inquiry revealing the entire truth about state capture. Instead, he wants to bury the State of Capture report.
Zuma is fighting his own problems. ANC veterans shouldn’t be disappointed if they fail to change his mind now. Their standing-up alone is a major blow to the ANC.
They are bearers of ANC history and values. People know who they are and believe them when they say Zuma’s ANC is not the authentic liberation movement of old. Voters will exact punishment as they did on August 3.
Veterans have de-legitimised the ANC.
Ndletyana is an associate professor of politics based at the Institute for Pan-African Thought and Conversation, University of Johannesburg.