The Rot is settling in

It was always going to be a long day. My colleague had phoned to inform me there might be a chance of getting a glimpse of the ANC Secretary General, Gwede Mantashe; "Perhaps we might be lucky to get an interview." I knew chances were slim for that but wanted to see if there was a way we could at least by pass the gatekeepers and schedule one with the SG.

I spent the night before wondering about a best angle to catch the attention of the SG without raising his irk—he is notorious for not suffering fools gladly, which is perhaps why I think he might be ANC's hope in the present mayhem of YL leaders speaking with their foot on the mount. I even contemplated using the little personal information of where he went to school, as told by my aunt who says she was with him in bygone days at Cala in the Eastern Cape. Talk about desperate measures.



It is clear that things are going to the dogs within the ANC as far as discipline is concerned. The ANCYL leadership especially is bent on dragging the organization towards a militant tone. "We're following the legacy of the organization." As its president Julius Malema clumsily put it. The Secretary General of COSATU, Zwelinzima Vavi, never one to shy away from controversy, joined the chorus of what most of us initially dismissed as the howling of the firebrand youth.



So I spent the night before formulating my questions, anticipating his answers so as to compel him into taking a clear stance on the issue. I imagined the SG saying, in his brash finger pointing manner; "You see, the political activism of our people taught the youth to give faith in theatricals, sometimes chaotic confrontations, as source of getting attention denied by apartheid authority. We grew with the ideology of unconstrained voluntarism, triumphalism of political will. Unfortunately because our leaders were mostly in jail or in exile we tended to lack in discipline and ethical standards, as you and would clearly remember from Consumer Boycotts in Queenstown that sometimes had tragic consequences. We grew with contemptuous disregard for authority and exaggerated regard in forceful democratic processes. With adventurist willingness to engage in violence that provokes crises of making the country ungovernable. The consequent is the legacy of militant behaviour noticeable in our youth. What is important now is to instil the realisation in our youth especially that lorhulument ngowabo [this government is theirs]. If they want to engage it with something there are proper legitimate chanells."

My aim was in making him realise that the ANC administration he's part of has come to power in that militant youth ticket, how do they suppose now they can clamp what has put them into power. Needless to say we never got near the SG. As I walked back between Company Gardens and Parliament that wet and cold Cape Town late afternoon I was visited still by more thought. An old Oak tree lay uprooted on Parliament flower garden, having just missed the marble statue of Princess Victoria in its fall from the rot. I wondered if this was some kind of prophecy. I recalled with repugnance that an exact replica stands before Main Library entrance at Port Elizabeth. Victoria stands, bloated with imperialism, a rod in one hand container of burning incense on the other. It was hard to miss the intended implications from Psalm 2: Thou shall break them with a rod of iron, thou shall dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. I recalled how always despised that implication when entering the library to research the Frontier history at the Africana section. The boulder dashed into pieces, in my mind, by Victoria was the Xhosa nation.



The wind was coming in front. It felt as though I was carrying zinc sheets on my head, as the Xhosa proverb goes. I think, when the doors of opportunity opened (freedom) for black South Africans, it found the very values necessary for success—thrift, self-control and personal responsibility— dispensed by culture of greed, euphemistically called ambition. This introduced brèche , a rupture with the continuity of history, especially in organizations like the ANC (African National Congress). The consequence of which are empty howling vessels like Malema, the rot gnawing at the roots of ANC.



What is this thing Malema calls the legacy of ANCYL? A passage in Mike Gevisser's book The Dream Deffered: Thabo Mbeki, came to mind. 'And so after a long dormancy in the 1920s and 1930s, African nationalist politics gathered new energy: the ANC Youth League was formed in 1943, attracting angry young men such as Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu and Oliver Tambo. The League's prime mover was Anton Lembede, a brilliant young lawyer with stern morals and evangelical tendencies, who saw redemption for his people in return to African values.' [pp 37]



Stern morals? How does Malema measure on that? Is this the legacy he's talking about? True, the ANCYL has always had an oedipal paradigm (reaction of radical resentment against characterized backwardness of their leadership) towards the progress of their political movement. That's how the likes of Nelson Mandela and O.R. Thambo shot into prominence. The advantage of Mandela's coevals is that they took time to educate themselves, politically and otherwise. Barabula. How does Mamela measure on that, since he's proud of being the present carrier of their baton? Not only that, past ANCYL leadership tended to hold in high regard good ethical standards.

Today's youth, the likes of Malema, capitalize on ignorance, irrationality, careerism, consumerism, drunkenness, driving flashy cars, and so forth. They are typical stereotype of backward evolution of what J.M. Coetzee in his novel, Age of Iron expressed as; 'Now, in South Africa, I see eyes clouding over again, scales thickening on them, as the land-explorers, the colonists, prepare to return to the deep.' The sad part is that rest of the organisation too is hollowing out. The party's hierarchy has lost coherence and control of its own apparatus. What undermines is the present leadership is being blackmailed by the militant wing it came to power on its ticket, coupled with lack of ideas in handling the root causes of the country's tremendous challenges.

Post 1994 ANC politics made an error of focusing on tactics at the expense of vision; of not grooming the next generation leadership as O.R. Tambo did with the likes of T. Mbeki. To compound ANC problems is the present influence of its gate-crusher later-day millionaires who are determined to make themselves electable through their pockets. They themselves do see much beyond the next contested seat, and have little idea how to transform politics by means of ideas. Hence lack of political substance will probably complete the rot of the party. Where their ideas are not anachronistic they are poorly thought out, uninformed and mostly radically inconsistent. It looks like the time for a 'revolution' founded on a philosophy of history was over. I wonder what Mantashe mean to do about that? Meantime, as we are prevented from asking relevant questions, the rot is settling and taking root fast.