Ramaphosa not that strong: Biko

ANC DEPUTY president Cyril Ramaphosa will not succeed single-handedly in changing the party, Hlumelo Biko, son of the late Black Consciousness leader Steve Biko, predicted yesterday.

“That party is a very difficult party for one person to impact, and I think that the constituency he brings is not as strong as many people around here would like it to be,” he told the Cape Town Press Club.

“I think he will have a very difficult time making the ANC into the image that he has. So I think that there is this collective leadership dynamic that will drown out the voice of a single individual.”

Biko, an investment banker and also the son of Mamphela Ramphele, said he believed President Jacob Zuma played identity politics, and that this had lowered the tone of the public and party discourse.

He referred to the tendency as “othering” those who did not subscribe to the dominant political view, in a bid to marginalise them, and said he believed it shamed ANC veterans like Ramaphosa and National Planning Minister Trevor Manuel.

“I think that identity politics is assumed as normal, and it is actually not something that people in the ANC are shocked about when they hear some of their leaders describe people as ‘un-African’.

“I think our president has participated in that and I don’t think it is useful for anybody, even within the ANC. I think people who are good inside the ANC find themselves cowering down to some of these levels, and I am not envious of people like Cyril and Trevor who have to function within that construct.”

Biko is currently promoting his book, The Great African Society.

Biko said the book was completed last year and that it was coincidence that it was published at the same time that Ramphele launched her new political party initiative.

But he added that their political thinking was largely similar. “I can confirm that I am my mother’s son,” he said.

“I can confirm that she brought me up and therefore many ideas in the book are shared.

“I am not sure which of those ideas in the book she is going to take. It is probably better to read her book.” – Sapa