The struggle continues towards a genuine and lasting emancipation: South Africa in the past 20 years

Abstract

The article underlines the fact that most of the problems facing the African National Congress (ANC) as the ruling party in South Africa are not new. A comparative analysis of the ANC's Consultative Conference held at Morogoro in 1969 with its national conference held 38 years later at Polokwane in 2007 proves this glaring point. The article also focuses on the battle of ideas by highlighting the intellectual struggles waged by African leaders against neo-colonialism – including racist white rule in apartheid South Africa. These leaders, including Kwame Nkrumah, Mwalimu Nyerere and O.R. Tambo among others, emphasised the centrality of both African and international solidarity in the struggle for national liberation in South Africa. Their viewpoints can be contrasted with intellectual diatribe against the national liberation struggle in South Africa spewed by white academics such as Belinda Bozzoli and Peter Delius. The latter were also dismissive of the role of African intellectuals in providing solution to the South African question. Such viewpoints correspond to those held by the President Jacob Zuma who contemptuously refers to African intellectuals as ‘clever blacks’ and has consistently ignored their crucial role in terms of providing lasting solutions and innovative ideas to problems bedevilling the post-1994 democratic state. Regardless of Zuma's foibles, the persistent battle of ideas in South Africa underscores the central role of African intellectuals in defining the African Progressive Movement whose task is to defeat the forces of neo-colonialism, continue to fight against the rampart poverty afflicting the masses and corrupt self-enrichment of the professional political class. This also includes fighting against the democratic South Africa reverting to a predator state after the demise of white rule. Furthermore, by discussing political dynamics in Zimbabwe, the article supports the view that among other pressing matters, the African Progressive Movement's task is to support South Africa's constructive conflict prevention role in the African continent. Steering away from international diplomacy and geopolitics, the article also discusses internal dynamics afflicting the ANC and its alliance partners by using GEAR as a case study. The resulting fractious debates have led to a situation wherein the ANC is treated as an organisation which has no right to be its sovereign self. Taking sectarian positions towards the ANC, antagonists view the ruling party as a candidate for capture by fortuitously positioned factions. Finally, the article showcases the ruling party's report presented by Thabo Mbeki at Polokwane. The report calls for organisational renewal and belabours the point that the fractured ANC, as a liberation movement which has attained political power in South Africa, needs to clear away the cobwebs of the present incumbency which has been veering off course because of high levels of corruption and the allurements of power.