The Secretary General of the ANC was a voice of reason when Julius Malema went off the rails. Comrade Gwede Mantashe counseled caution, arguing that this young man needed to be nurtured so that he could become a responsible leader. It seems that some form of nurturing is occurring and the young man, “as yet not a leader,” has grudgingly recanted.
But now it seems that the comrade General Secretary is in serious need of nurturing. He has mounted an attack on the head and deputy head of the Constitutional Court as forming part of a counter revolutionary force out to destroy the ANC.
Or is Asmal right that there is a serious threat to the constitution and the independence of the Judiciary? If not, then what counter revolutionary force is stalking the land? Is the ANC SG referring to factions in the ANC who constitute the counter revolutionary forces? Is it factions allied to Mbeki that were vanquished at Polokwane?
It seems that anyone who is seen to be standing in the way of Zuma becoming president is a counter revolutionary. Has it come to this that the sum total of ANC politics is the defense of the President of the ANC? Zuma is not the ANC. If that is the logic of the Secretary General’s argument, then the ANC is in deep trouble. The country is in deep trouble. How is the ANC going to deal with the counter revolutionaries?
Can it be that when the new administration takes office and faces the challenges of office, it is going to use its power like the current incumbent and use the leavers of office to deal with “counter revolutionaries”.
Comrade Gwede, if you want to buy into the concept of a “National Democratic Revolution”, you need to understand that there are constitutional mechanisms to deal with impropriety by members of our judiciary. Let that process take its course and lets hope that it is an open and transparent process so that we don’t have any comeback.
Comrade Gwede, who is going to “educate the educators” (read “nurture”)? No amount of name calling and reds under the bed politics is going to advance “the struggle”, only sound policies and a mature leadership that we can engage with to address the deep economic and social crisis facing our country.
July 10, 2008 at 9:40 am
I think we need a new campaign, similar to Ronnie Kasrils’ Not In My Name campaign whereby Jews disassociated themselves from Israel’s policies toward Palestinians. More and more ANC supporters I know are becoming increasingly dismayed at the actions and statement of the ANC and alliance leadership. These leaders need to know that the mandate they received at Polokwane and by their electoral majority is not a blank cheque. Which again raises the issue of accountability, its absence an increasingly intractable problem.
It is one of the great tragedies of our democratic era that in our second decade of democracy the greatest threat to our constitution increasingly originates in the party that fought hardest and sacrificed the most to liberate South Africa. Whereas previously the Constitution was the highest law, inviolable, a sacred shrine to our human rights (as in ‘enshrined in the constitution’), now the ANC sees fit to undermine it for its narrow ends. Gwede Mantashe is deceiving himself if he thinks we buy his fluff that he is criticising only individual judges and not the institution of the judiciary. As Raymond Suttner pointed out in Business Day on Monday, accusing the Constitutional Court of harbouring ‘counter-revolutionary forces’ can only be construed as an attack on the judiciary. The SACP’s response to Suttner, an esteemed SACP leader in previous years and still highly regarded by political commentators and analysts, is to accuse him of being “a useful tool in the hands of the enemies of our party and of the working class”. Presumably Suttner is in cahoots with Langa, Moseneke, Albie Sachs and those other reactionaries that defend out constitution in the highest court of our land. These kinds of attacks on public intellectuals gives substance to Xolela Mancgu’s point last week that the seeping rot of fascism is creeping into ANC and hence national politics. I hope he’s wrong, but almost every week the ANC leadership gives new reasons to think he’s right. Suttner’s point that Jacob Zuma is the most problematic leader in the ANC’s long history is a reflection not only on Zuma, but on all the senior office holders in the top echelons of the party.