South Africa's governing party, born in a township church in 1912,
found it could liberate in poetry but had to govern in prose
David Smith in Johannesburg
Saturday December 31 2011
guardian.co.uk
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/dec/30/anc-centenary-south-africa
The South African president, Jacob Zuma, will be joined by foreign
heads of state where it all began: a Wesleyan church in Waaihoek,
Bloemfontein. At the stroke of midnight, he will step forward to light
the "centenary flame" symbolising the resistance that gave hope to all
of Africa.
The African National Congress, the oldest liberation movement on the
continent, turns 100 years old [http://mg.co.za/article/2011-12-23-on-
a-century-of-movement" title="] on 8 January. A year of celebrations
costing at least 100m rand (?7.9m) will kick off with a "centenary
golf day" [http://www.anc.org.za/show.php?id=9258" title="">kick off
with a "centenary golf day], a dinner, a church service, a centennial
address by Zuma, a performance of the ANC's history in song and dance
and a shindig for 100,000 people.
Under the black, green and gold banner reading "100 years of selfless
struggle [http://www.polity.org.za/article/towards-100-years-of-
selfless-struggle-2011-10-31" title="]", there will be much lionising
of heroes such as Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo and Walter Sisulu. But
in some quarters there will also be nostalgia for old certainties, a
suspicion that today's leaders do not measure up to the titans of old,
and a fear that South Africa's governing party enters its second
century tarnished and poised to tear itself apart [http://
www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/08/anc-crisis-eve-centenary"
title="].
"One hundred years should be the ANC's biggest celebration, to have
survived this long and be in government, but it's now a party in
crisis," said William Gumede, author of Thabo Mbeki and the Battle for
the Soul of the ANC. "It's a bittersweet victory. This may be the
pinnacle but now it's all downhill."
Symbolically perhaps, the ANC has been forced to covertly buy its own
birthplace at a hugely inflated price so it can take centre stage in
the commemorations. In July, it spent 10m rand (?800,000) of public
funds to regain the Wesleyan church in Waaihoek from a man who
acquired it for just 280,000 rand (?22,000) eight years ago, according
to South Africa's Mail & Guardian newspaper. [http://mg.co.za/
article/2011-11-18-anc-taps-govt-funds-for-centenary" title="] There
is now a race to complete costly renovations before the centenary
flame is lit.
The church stands in what used to be a black township in Bloemfontein
in Free State province. It was here in 1912 [http://
www.timeslive.co.za/opinion/columnists/2011/10/09/bring-these-angels-of"
title="], before the death of Scott of the Antarctic and the sinking
of the Titanic, that a gathering of businessmen, clergymen,
journalists, lawyers and teachers held a political meeting [http://
www.iol.co.za/the-star/the-foundations-of-our-conflict-1.1205494"
title="]that laid the foundations of the South African Native National
Congress, renamed the ANC in 1923.
The party's cause came from unlikely DNA in the shape of Britain, and
Mahatma Gandhi. The latter arrived in South Africa in 1893 and blazed
a trail with resistance campaigns against colonial rule [http://
www.southafrica.info/about/history/gandhi.htm" title="]. "This was the
progenitor in a sense of the ANC," said Allister Sparks [http://
www.whoswhosa.co.za/allister-sparks-26923" title="], a veteran
journalist and political analyst.
Britain had angered the black activists and intellectuals by handing
power to Afrikaners (descended from Dutch and German settlers) when
the Union of South Africa was formed in 1910. "It was the betrayal of
black people," Sparks added. "This is the only instance when Britain
granted independence to a minority group, because it was stricken with
guilt about the Boer war [http://century.guardian.co.uk/1899-1909/
Story/0,6051,126339,00.html" title="].
"If one is looking for an original sin in the South African story, it
was that. The granting of independence to the white minority created a
problem that led to apartheid."
The 1913 Natives Land Act [http://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/
native-land-act-was-passed" title="] carved up territory along racial
lines, in effect giving 90% of land to white people. The ANC's first
political action was to petition Britain to intervene but in vain. In
1914, Afrikaner nationalists founded the National party, also in
Bloemfontein. It introduced racial apartheid [http://mg.co.za/tag/
apartheid" title="] (meaning "apartness" in Afrikaans) in 1948.
The ANC was banned in 1960 and began an armed struggle, carrying out
200 acts of sabotage in 18 months. The apartheid regime hit back,
arresting and jailing key figures including Mandela, who would spend
27 years behind bars [http://observer.guardian.co.uk/Guardian/world/
1964/mar/01/nelsonmandela.southafrica" title="]. Other leaders,
notably Tambo [http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2007/oct/18/
southafrica.world" title="], went into exile and campaigned tirelessly
for international support.
The corrosive effect of sanctions, and township unrest were among
pressures that brought the edifice crashing down. In 1990, the ANC was
unbanned and Mandela released [http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/
from-the-archive-blog/2011/jun/05/guardian190-mandela-is-freed"
title="]. The first democratic polls followed in 1994, with Mandela
becoming the country's first black president. Paradoxically, Africa's
first liberation movement was the last to take power.
But critics believe it is trading on past glories because the present
is increasingly unbearable. Like its counterparts elsewhere in Africa,
it has found it could liberate in poetry but must govern in prose,
with the glue that held it together fast disappearing.
Moeletsi Mbeki [http://mg.co.za/person/moeletsi-mbeki" title="], a
political economist whose brother Thabo succeeded Mandela as president
from 1999 to 2008, said: "A liberation movement has one project, which
was to get rid of apartheid. Everybody could agree on that. A
government has a multiplicity of choices. Once you have to make
choices, the different schools of thought say not this choice but that
one. The ANC is in a very rickety state right now."
Crime and HIV rates soared but, once in office, some veterans seemed
determined to line their pockets and demonstrate the timeless truth
that power corrupts [http://mg.co.za/tag/corruption" title="]. The
biggest stain was a 1990s international arms deal [http://mg.co.za/tag/
arms-deal" title="] costing an estimated 70bn rand (?5.5bn) of
taxpayers' money. A decade later, with much of the military equipment
redundant, official inquiries continue into allegations that bribes
worth more than 2bn rand (?159m) were paid to individuals and the ANC
itself.
Andrew Feinstein, an ANC MP, resigned after the party asked him to
collude in a coverup of the scandal. He emigrated to London soon after
and has written a book, The Shadow World, exploring the global arms
trade. "In order to hide the corruption, the ANC were prepared to
undermine the very institutions of democracy that they had so
courageously fought to establish," he said.
"There's a strong sense that parliament has never recovered, that this
was the moment at which parliament became nothing more than a rubber
stamp for the ruling party. This really was the moment at which the
ANC was prepared to say, 'Yes, we are prepared to sacrifice these
institutions to protect ourselves, to protect the party.' It reflects
a profound lack of transparency and accountability in the way the ANC
operates ? the corrupt core of the party. In that sense it had a
devastating impact on our democracy."
For Feinstein, who had been a member of the party for much of his
adult life, it was a betrayal of the basic principle. "It was an
organisation that I revered and I was incredibly disappointed at how
quickly South Africa had gone from this notion of the politics of the
impossible, exceptional because of the personalities involved, to
adopting the global norms of politics.
"I was devastated personally and in a sense of an organisation's
ideals thwarted. It was a wrenching thing for me. Today it feels as
though the organisation no longer has any moral fibre, and personally
I find that very sad."
Along with charges of cronyism and patronage, the ANC is fractured by
internecine warfare [http://www.timeslive.co.za/opinion/columnists/
2011/10/03/divided-it-stands-fall-it-will" title="]. The party's
broad church of members, a strength during the struggle years, has
become unwieldy, a weakness in trying to run one of the world's most
unequal societies. There are battles between left and right, between
African nationalists and pro-western liberals [http://
www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/nov/11/julius-malema-anc-crushed"
title="], between big egos vying for power and the riches it brings.
One of Mbeki's favourite literary quotations is recycled endlessly in
the South African press: "The centre cannot hold [http://www.online-
literature.com/donne/780" title="]."
Poison in the bloodstream was evident when the autocratic Mbeki was
ousted after an unseemly power struggle. Now Zuma, seeking re-election
at the end of the centenary year, is facing an insurgency from youth
leader Julius Malema [http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/15/
justice-malala-on-julius-malema" title="]. But party stalwarts play
down talk of imminent implosion, noting the ANC has weathered previous
internal storms.
Pallo Jordan [http://mg.co.za/person/pallo-jordan" title="], a former
government minister and ANC member for nearly half a century, said:
"One has heard it all before and one by one the prophets of doom have
always been proved wrong. There is misunderstanding of the character
of the movement, especially by the commentators you get in the daily
press. Many of them have never been in political movements, political
parties, so when they hear a heated argument, they assume, 'This is
it, he'll never survive this one.' Well, the argument ends and people
carry on."
Jordan added: "In a living, radical movement, as opposed to one that's
conservative, there are always those tensions and there's always
argument and ferment. The ANC in that respect was no different. In
Britain, until Tony Blair, the relationship between the trade unions
and the Labour party was one of cordiality and quarrelling. The ANC
will celebrate its centenary in very good health."
Recent election results, however, suggest a gradual erosion of the
support that the ANC once took for granted [http://
www.politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/view/politicsweb/en/page71619?oid=271240&sn=Detail&pid=71619"
title="]. The patience of voters who still lack electricity, water and
other basic services is wearing thin. A growing educated middle class
is losing touch with apartheid history and seeking alternatives. Some
commentators predict that the party could lose its parliamentary
majority within a decade.
And with the trauma of public rejection would come the greatest test
of all: to avoid the example of revolutionaries such as Zimbabwe's
president, Robert Mugabe, with their assumed divine right to rule.
Asked how the ANC would handle election defeat, Jordan replied: "As
far as I can judge, that's so far in the future I hate to speculate
because I don't know who would be the leadership of the ANC at that
time. But the ANC today would hand over power gracefully and let
whoever was coming into office come into office."
The party born in a township church [http://www.iol.co.za/the-star/the-
anc-100-years-in-the-making-1.1194504" title="] in 1912 is at a
crossroads, looking back on a proud heritage beyond praise, but
contemplating an uncertain and perilous future. One man who will never
criticise its actions is the retired Mandela who, just seven years
younger than the ANC, remains an unswervingly loyal party man -
leaving it to others to speculate whether it has failed his legacy.
"I would love to know his thoughts about that," said Amina Cachalia
[http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/amina-cachalia" title="], 81, a
struggle veteran and friend of Mandela for more than 60 years. "I'm
sure he would rejoice, like I would rejoice, in a hundred years of the
ANC. But I often wonder how he would relate to it today and to what is
happening in the ANC.
"Not that there's a great deal that he would probably find wrong, but
he was a man who always felt there should be no fighting between
people wanting to be in power, and that in those years everybody was
so dedicated, nobody got paid for their dedication or commitment to
the struggle. I think Nelson would feel that people should be like
that continuously: dedicate yourself to the people of South Africa
without having a little agenda."
guardian.co.uk Copyright (c) Guardian News and Media Limited. 2011
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