The+barrel+of+the+Sunday+Times,+Castro+Ngobese,+Hlomelang

Hlomelang, Vol 3 No 9: 16 - 22 March 2007
=The barrel of the Sunday Times!=


 * CASTRO NGOBESE**

THE SUNDAY TIMES, FOR SOME UNKNOWN REASON, has become a world wide web to breed factionalism for pseudo intellectuals who seek to influence and ultimately tilt the leadership outcome of the National Conference of the ANC scheduled for December 2007. The article last week by Mteto Nyati, '//The race is on, and may the best man win//', is a case in point.

These pseudo intellectuals are being used and sponsored to write articles in national newspapers with a view of shaping both the political and the leadership discourse in our country and the liberation movement broadly. These pseudo intellectuals are projecting themselves as the //'leading lights//' of our masses and the movement. They throw in a number of names for the position of the Presidency of the ANC.

Is there really a leadership crisis in the ANC? Are branches of the ANC in a position not to resolve on the kind of the leadership it wants? Is the ANC membership divided on who should succeed Thabo Mbeki? The ANC has constantly said that //'Leadership of the ANC lies with the branches of the ANC and the process for nominations has not started//'. This assertion has opened a womb of opportunism for those who have no confidence in the rank and file of the ANC as to whom they should elect in the forthcoming National Conference in December 2007.

While we respect the ANC processes, the Young Communist League (YCL) does have an interest in who becomes the leader of the ANC and ultimately of the country in 2009. This is informed by virtue of the ANC of being the leader of the Alliance and the National Democratic Project in the ongoing social transformation in our country. But our interest in the leadership of the ANC is not informed by factionalist interests or patronage.

Mteto throws out a range of names in a fishing basket for the position of the ANC President - Kgalema Motlhanthe, Cyril Ramaphosa, Tokyo Sexwale, Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma. This is done deliberately and opportunistically so as to present a scenario where both Mbeki and Zuma should not avail themselves for the position of the ANC Presidency. Instead a compromise candidate is advocated as being better for the unity and cohesion of the ANC.

These pseudo intellectuals are engaged in a clandestine mission with the '//1996 class project//' that has constantly betrayed the strategic objectives of the National Democratic Revolution (NDR) and is engaged in implementing the neo-liberal policies in our country that have sought to reverse the advances we accumulated in the democratic breakthrough of 1994.

Instead of setting the agenda for the ANC Policy Conference and subsequently the National Conference on key policy questions for deliberations and options they are cajoled to enter into factional battles for the leadership of the ANC. It is unprecedented in the history of the ANC for its leadership to be determined through newspapers and more strangely through the barrel of the Sunday Times. All of a sudden the traditions of the ANC of Luthuli, Tambo and Mandela must be erased and replaced by media hype and "Shock and Awe" tactics.

In its entire history spanning for more than nine decades the ANC has always had - and will continue to have - the capacity to determine its leadership guided by its traditions and the constitutional obligations of the ANC.

The barrel of the Sunday Times seeks to bombard our people with a storm of confusion. For them an acknowledgement for the change of leadership is appreciated, but for the purposes of restoring the continued accumulation path that has been dominant in the Mbeki Presidency. This shows these pseudo intellectuals are being used to purport the ideals of the ruling class and the '//1996 class project//' that has benefited immensely in the first decade of freedom at the expense of the overwhelming majority of our people who are remaining poor.

The National General Council (NGC) of the ANC in 2005 was a strategic blow or a watershed for the '//1996 class project//'. As the General Secretary of the SACP has argued in latest Red Alert, (The motive forces of the National Democratic Revolution, Vol 6, No.4, 7 March 2007)…Our movement has, in the past, correctly insisted that the working class is the leading motive force of the national democratic revolution, a perspective re-affirmed by, amongst others, the ANC NGC in 2005. The dominant project in the ANC and with the assistance of the State which in their favour has been used to strategically shift the ideological and the organisational character of the ANC from being a mass and a liberation movement into an ANC that relies on a bureaucratic cadre and the electorate.

The truth of the matter is that these pseudo intellectuals want to determine the ANC leadership through the barrel of the Sunday Times.

These articles are not appearing for the first time in the Sunday Times their have been systematically and in a structured manner being featured. The articles are being planted with an intention of swaying the outcomes of the ANC National Conference leadership for the benefit of a particular bloc for narrow factionalist and opportunistic reasons. This is done to invoke a sense of fear amongst the rank and file of the ANC from taking conscious and political correct decisions and reclaiming the ANC as the disciplined force of the left through its programmes and leadership.

The opinion piece by Mteto is a reflection of the desperation by the '//1996 class project//' to create a leadership confusion amongst the ANC structures and the Alliance broadly. For them, the role of the ANC is to manage Capitalism and its role is no longer the radical transformation of social relations as encapsulated in the Freedom Charter and the National Democratic Revolution project. The ANC National Conference means for them is to defend this fallacy and neo liberal dominance in the ANC. Mteto writes as if he possesses the monopoly of wisdom and ideas about the ANC. We refuse to believe that Mteto is writing this article in a genuine and principled point of view and as a cadre of the ANC and the movement in general. He has joined the likes of Njabulo Ndebele, Barney Pityana and others who write with venom and they views detached from the reality and have been anointed with the Doctorate in Factionalism by the University of the Native Club.

The barrel of the Sunday Times is being used wittingly or unwittingly to create a sense of confusion amongst the general public and the entire membership of the ANC on the kind of a leader the ANC (and of course the Alliance) needs in the current epoch of the National Democratic Revolution (NDR). This is done deliberately in isolation to the overall thrust of the programme or the trajectory the ANC must advance and pursue as a result of the emergence and dominance of global capitalism which puts the interests of the few or fraction at the forefront.

The truth of the matter is that we won't engage in a fishing expediency when we elect our leaders in the forthcoming ANC National Conference, but we will be guided by the history and the traditions of our glorious movement the ANC. The barrel of the Sunday Times as represented by Mteto will not confuse or deter us. We know our leader(s) and the kind of the ANC we want to build, an ANC that committed to the ideals of the working class and the poor, a disciplined force of the left.

The barrel of the Sunday Times will not work and dictate to us. To paraphrase Ruth First we are not content to be handed our leadership through the barrel of the Sunday Times. We have seen the heritage of mass confusion the '//1996 class project//' is infusing through the barrel of the pen. We are determined to safeguard the ANC and our movement, for we as the youth we know what kind of ANC we want….There can be no proper understanding of the ANC without a proper understanding of working class leadership and bias.

Hlomelang, May'hlome, amani, voorberei!

//* Castro Ngobese is National Spokesperson of the Young Communist League and writes this article in his personal capacity//.


 * From: http://www.anc.org.za/youth/**

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