2005-10-07,+Smuts+Ngonyama+letter+on+ANC+think+tank,+B+Day


 * Letters, Business Day, Johannesburg, 06 October 2005**

= **Different battle** =

You report in, ANC moots policy think-tank to take battle to leftist allies (October 5), that the African National Congress (ANC) is setting up a policy institute to strengthen it in its ideological battles with “its leftist allies”.

It is true that the process of setting up an ANC policy institute is in progress. This follows decisions of the ANC national general council in July 2000 and ANC national executive committee to set up an institute to enrich the party’s policy development and monitoring process. The ANC policy institute would not be unlike similar institutes attached to political parties elsewhere.

But where on earth did the newspaper get the idea that its purpose is to face down the ANC’s alliance partners? The ANC is indeed looking to the policy institute, among other things, to play a supportive role in the ideological and political battle. But this is not a battle the ANC will undertake against its allies — it is a battle against the forces of conservatism and reaction, who seek to maintain minority privilege and resist the democratic transformation of SA.

It is an ideological and political battle against those forces in society who would want the ANC to pursue a course inimical to the interests of the majority of SA’s poor.

In fact, it is an ideological battle against precisely the kind of political misrepresentation of which this article is a prime example.

Smuts Ngonyama Head of Presidency, African National Congress

From: http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/opinion.aspx?ID=BD4A99329