Pliant group leads ANCYL

REGULAR readers of Floyd’s Call would know that I have sang a very loud song for a long time about the death of the ANC Youth League and at some stage I was called all sorts of names, including but not limited to anti-revolutionary and a delusional angry cadre.

Some were decent enough to say it to my face while others created temporary e-mails to send me their dissatisfaction with what they called nothing but my delusions. So, you should have seen me when I heard that the young lions, formerly led by Fighter Julius Malema and my namesake, Floyd Shivambu, were going to elect new leadership in Midrand.

I almost fell from my chair as I had forgotten about the ANC Youth League. I am one of the people who declared its death the day Malema, Shivambu and the rest of the young lions were either suspended or shown the door by Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa, also known infamously as Buffalo Soldier after the controversial bid for the animal.

I was very shocked when one of my friends in a Twitter direct message asked me if I was accredited as a journalist to see history being made. “What history, my friend?” I responded before she told me she was referring to the ANC Youth League electing a new leader.

This election was going to come with so much enthusiasm and take the young lions forward. This time I had to call my friend and ask her if she wasn’t drunk tweeting me because she’s very fond of the bitter beverages.

No, my friend wasn’t drunk or anywhere near a night club, but sitting nicely in her flat watching Generations when she was tweeting me. I then had to ask her who she was supporting and what she told me really broke my heart.

“My friend, it’s not about what we want as the young people anymore but about who the ANC sees as the kind of candidate who can mend the youth league and be able to listen to the mother body.” This was not what the youth league is supposed to be.

She told me what had been in the news in the previous few days: a group of senior leaders in the ANC, infamously called the Premier League, were behind a faction seen as one to toe the line and not one to give the ANC, its leader, Jacob Zuma, and his leadership a problem. I knew there and then we had arrived at a place in our country where we thought we would never arrive.

A place where the individual and the cult can finally control using the resources around them to protect themselves and those close to them. Well, we can talk about how Zuma has become bigger than the ANC the whole day and still we’ll never get there.

The youth league conference at Midrand’s Gallagher Estate has come and gone, and we all know that it, for the next five years or more, will be under the leadership of people who look like they were councillors during Nelson Mandela’s reign as the first democratically elected president of this country or deputy minister during Thabo Mbeki’s time in power.

Collen Maine is one such leader and his election was just as controversial as the scenes we saw in Polokwane several years ago when Zuma, through a carefully orchestrated machinery, ousted Mbeki in what has been widely seen as the ANC’s worst ever decision. A lot of those who were involved then have already come out to apologise for their roles in all of this, but it doesn’t change a thing as we all know that Zuma is the king of this country and doesn’t behave anymore like that humble person before he became the land’s most powerful man.

Maine has already, in his first address and acceptance speech, spoken of how they, as the youth league, will do anything to defend the party and especially its president, Zuma. Now, that is not necessarily a bad thing under normal circumstances, but we all know, unfortunately, that there’s nothing normal about the current ANC and most of its leagues, especially the ANC Youth League since the muting of Malema and all those who were seen as rascals.

Why were they seen as rascals? Because they disagreed with the ruling party and especially Zuma. He didn’t take it lightly and it ended the way it did. What did it give birth to?

It gave birth to the EFF and today that political party is giving the ANC a run for its money in parliament. But another big loss in this whole victory of Maine is the fact that Ronald Ozzy Lamola lost in this debacle of a conference.

Lamola is known to have been a favourite until the Premier League came to the fore. There, in Lamola, the youth league missed out on an opportunity of correcting the wrongs of the past.

But the ANC has always been observing Lamola’s independence of thought and not being anyone’s lackey. That, unfortunately, is not welcome in today’s ANC, which is sad and unfortunate.

I wish the likes of Maine a lot of luck, but unfortunately they never competed for their positions, as they were given them on the silver platter. The ANC shall forever have a hold over them and they will never be independent since theirs was a giveaway leadership instead of a contested one.

This is unfortunately sad for the future of the ANC, the youth league and the general politics of this country. If the young are meek, the future is bleak.

The more the young are meek, the less radicalism there shall be in our political discourse. The ANC may pay one of the heaviest prices in next year’s local government elections as a result of what transpired in Midrand on that fateful night that saw some dance in jubilation while others like Lamola could be seen isolated in grief.

The ANC is eating itself on a daily basis and at a rapid speed. Unfortunately it seems to be ignorant of this. My advice to it is simple: revolutionary parties die.