By ORAPELENG MATSHIDISO
First and foremost, I would like to congratulate all comrades of the ANC, who have been deployed to Provincial Legislatures, National Council of Provinces (NCOP) and National Parliament. Comrades, few days or weeks to come, some of you might be deployed as President, Deputy President, Chairpersons of Portfolios, Premiers, MECs, Speakers, Ministers, Deputy Ministers and others would serve in various executives within the state and state entities.
So, I profoundly urge you to recall that the ANC at its 2017 Policy Conference stated that “It is foreign to our movement (ANC) for comrades to see deployment as a source of material benefit rather than the reason to serve the people”.
You should always be “analytically alert” because you would be serving under a completely different environment compared to the previous six administrations. It is a difficult period for the ANC, therefore, now or never, ANC needs deployed cadres who could concretely analyse the political situation in the country and comprehensively interpret the current moment and the challenges confronting both county and the ANC as they prosecute their assigned tasks.
There is a need for an emergence of cadre who can internalise and put in practice the principles of service to the people within the context of Government of National Unity (GNU) or possibly Coalition government (CG).
Comrades, your actions and characters will either affirm or dismiss what former President Thabo Mbeki said in 2005 that: “The matter of the cadres of the movement has always been an important part of what constitutes the ANC, of what defines the ANC. And those cadres have changed over time”.
And indeed, when the ANC was formed in 1912, it needed and had cadres such as Pixley ka Isaka Seme and the collective leadership to articulate the bigger picture (vision) and the reasons for ANC’s existence to the delegates and South Africans. After that conference, the movement needed cadres who could entrench the ANC into the society and make it a true “instrument of liberation in the hands of the people”.
Cadre Solomon Plaatje and the then President John Dube, emerged as cadres of the epoch to lead the collective in executing that daunting task. In fact, at different epochs the ANC has faced set-backs, betrayals to the revolution and compromises to the interest of disenfranchised masses, along the way there were challenges, failures and successes as cadres executed the tasks of different moments.
Again, the ANC adopted the 1949 Programme of Action that came up as a result of the emergence of new radical cadres within the ANC Youth league (ANCYL) in 1940s. Yet again, that programme of action required new cadres of the time in a form of volunteers to effectively implement it. Despite the apartheid repression, the ANC’s successful implementation of the 1949 programme led to 1952 defiance campaign and massive involvement of the people in the activities and the work of the ANC.
I contend that, the rigorous involvement of the masses particularly the working class and the poor into the ANC at that time, assisted to entrench it into the political psychology of the people as a trusted leader of the society and the dependable discipline force of the left. After the ANC was banned in 1960s, there was a need for cadres of a particular type to rise within the ranks and files of congress movement, and those cadres rose to the occasion with courage and determination to die or be arrested in defence of the people’s movement and revolution.
In 1970s and 80s when many of the cadres of the people’s revolution were killed, banned, exiled and arrested, there was a need for a new cadre that could mobilise and carry a torch of hope for freedom. Those cadres emerged through the formation of United Democratic Front (UDF) in 1983. Subsequent to the unbanning of political parties and the negotiations known as CODESA that led to the formation of the then GNU. The organisation needed yet its cadres who could carefully read the political atmosphere of that time. Those comrades had to manage the transition through the application of “strategic consistency and tactical flexibility”, which led to ANC’s ascendancy to the position of being a major governing party in South Africa.
Thereafter, new cadres were need in a form of genuine midwives of social transformation for the prosecution of the National Democratic Revolution (NDR). The revolution that was and still envisaged to ensure that the previously disenfranchised masses of the people whom in the main are the working class and the poor become the primary beneficiaries of the revolutionary victory after the democratic breakthrough of 1994.
Today it is sad that, the ANC’s electoral support has declined to below 50% because of the range of issues known to all of us, including, the failure of the leaders and deployed comrades of the ANC to concretely understand the 2017 policy conference statement that, “When our people protest against unethical behaviour of our leadership (and deployed cadres), they do so not out of hatred but from feeling betrayed as they expect better and higher standards from revolutionaries (cadres)”.
My fellow comrades, as you would be deployed and assigned responsibilities in the state and government, know that the people of South Africa “expect better and higher standards” from you as cadres of the ANC. And as a consequence of the envisaged GNU or possibly CG, you are requested to trust the wisdom of the leadership and respect the decision of your organisation, wherever you are deployed please accept. This is a moment wherein the ANC more than ever needs disciplined and committed cadres who understand that the future of the nation and the ANC is at stake.
I vividly remember that in 2005, former President Thabo Mbeki once indicated that, he had a meeting with number of the then Director Generals (DGs), who were apparently complaining that as a President, he had appointed cadres who were political juniors as Ministers and Deputy Ministers, instead of them. In his response to those DGs, Mbeki said there must be an understanding that “As cadres of the movement (ANC), we are necessarily deployed in many different fields. The fact that somebody serves as MP, the other as a Minister and the other one as a DG does not mean that one is superior to the other.
“The challenges of leading the machinery of state are as important as the challenges of leading the legislatures. Therefore, the idea that you are a lesser cadre, a lesser comrade, lesser than the Minister if you are DG, represents a fundamental misunderstanding of what we are taking about”. Comrades go out there and represent the ANC and serve the people very well with a clearer understanding, that you are deployed by the ANC to serves its mandate as a dependable representative of the people and trusted leader of the society.
I also hope and trust that, the leadership of ANC, as they navigate through the uncharted paths of negotiating for the formation of GNU; will never enter into any agreement that would compromise the ANC’s historic position as the dependable ally of the working class and the poor, because any decision that stands to compromises the interests of the previously disenfranchised masses of our people and seek to preserve the white monopoly privileges, would possibly lead to the end of the tripartite plus one alliance of COSATU, ANC, SANCO and SACP. It’s a matter of historic fact the ANC without the alliance will be weaker and possibly to become a neo-liberal organisation that would abandon the working class and the poor.
I agree with Dr David Mohale and Prof Vusi Gumede in their article in the City Press of the past Sunday, that: “The future of desired stable and democratic South Africa depends primarily on the resolution of ownership patterns. Democracy should be understood in its relation to development, it must empower the people to live and lead lives they value, without which it becomes a farce”.
(Note: Orapeleng Matshediso is a member of the ANC in North West (Dr Ruth Segomotsi Mompati Region. All views raised here remain of the author and Taung DailyNews and its associates do not agree nor disagree with the content of the article)
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