Images of the Future and Strategies in the Present: The Freedom Charter and the South African Left

Abstract

Although over 30 years old, a de facto obligation appears still to exist on all political organisations struggling to transform the South African state to define their position vis-à-vis the Freedom Charter. The Charter is, moreover, the clef de voute of the alliance between the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the African National Congress (ANC), one of the most significant political alliances in South Africa today. In its programme the SACP identifies itself as belonging to the National Liberation Alliance headed by the ANC. The objective of this alliance is national liberation, the ‘main content of which is the national liberation of the African people’. This chapter elucidates the theoretical basis of the strategic alliance; and considers some recent critiques of this strategy developed from within the South African left. The SACP recognises that in a very crucial respect, contemporary South Africa differs significantly from the societies for which the theory of national-democratic revolution was initially developed.