ANC members must vote with their heads

ANC members must vote with their heads

In response to the commentaries, analysis and reporting in the run-up to the simmering tensions within the African National Congress en route to Polokwane, I believe Africa’s oldest liberation movement is at the crossroads.

Widely regarded as the ‘broad church’ by supporters who have revered the ANC, it still enjoys mass-based support that is almost unrivalled in the world.

Under the flagship of the shield, spear and wheel emblem, Xhosas and Zulus, Hindus and Muslims, English and Afrikaners, Jews and Christians, Khoisans and coloureds, have found each other in this ‘broad church’.

The collective leadership of the ANC, from Luthuli, Mandela, Tambo, and others, set a high standard for the party.

In the past 96 years, too many people have given too much, having sacrificed their lives, careers, properties and families in their loyal support of the ANC.

The ‘broad church’ that it is, the ANC was big enough to forgive and shelter apartheid collaborators in the new democracy. But experts will concede that politics is in itself an agent of change, a powerful catalyst that strives to accommodate divergent groups to give peace a chance.

While the ANC has governed remarkably since the changing of the guards, with the 2010 FIFA World Cup coup cited as one of its most spectacular successes, there have also been many shortfalls in its political portfolio.

It is precisely the sharp contrasts and anomalies, such as the ‘get-rich’ scheme that favours the political elite via Black Economic Empowerment versus the crumbs for the cadres that has created a dangerous chasm between Luthuli House and the masses.

While the leadership is engaging each other in a gloves-off tussle for the Polokwane presidency, ordinary supporters and admirers, from intellectuals to teenagers who wear the green, gold and black colours with pride, are looking to this ‘broad church’ to unite a country that is still grappling with a myriad post-apartheid socio-economic challenges.

Unity remains uppermost in the minds of those who have given so much, suffered so much. for the ANC.

The dream of a non-racial and non-sexist democracy, sprinkled with ubuntu (humaneness) and batho pele (putting people first), is still cherished by those who have put their very lives and careers on the line for this utopian dream.

In the ANC, individuals, iconic leaders and populists will come and go.

The ‘broad church’ that is the ANC will weather the storms and the sunshine, standing firmly on its pillars of unity, non-racialism, social justice and human rights to be judged by history.

Now is therefore the time for a clarion call to disciplined delegates to vote with their heads, and not their hearts, to set into motion a broad-brush, holistic, collective and global strategy of putting the interest of all South Africans first and far above party politics.

MARLAN PADAYACHEE
Westville
South Africa

Dateline: Durban, South Africa: Published on Page 12 Daily News (South Africa) on 12 December 2007