Dankie ANC 1949 elective conference – lessons and betrayal

By: Thami ka Plaatjie*

On the fateful summer day of the 5 December 1949, Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo and Walter Sisulu paid Albert Xuma a historic and provocative visit. He met them at his large modern Sophiatown house. Xuma was the then President General of the ANC. His term of office was expiring on the 16 December 1949 and the Youth League wanted to support him for re-election on certain pre-conditions.

Leadership was not automatic but was contingent on pivotal ideas and principles. The league’s condition was that Xuma must support their non-collaboration plank of boycott of the Native Representative Council (NRC), the Transkei Bhunga and Advisory Councils. The Youth League had consolidated their ideological stance under the aegis of the Program of Action, which superintendent by A. P. Mda and largely authored by Robert Sobukwe through his Fort Hare ANCYL branch.

Xuma, being cast in the liberal mould, refused to budge and chastised the youth leaders. He could not countenance being told by young upstarts what to do given his lofty rank in politics and society. His lengthy assortment of qualifications elevated him far above the juvenile inputs of the ANCYL. Xuma was at peak strength, hence the scurrilous attack on the Youth League.

He read them the riot act, tongue-lashed them as he gesticulated and gyrated furiously, giving them a long political lecture. After the meeting, he issued a terse statement wherein he stated that: ”Under the circumstances, I felt their approach was bribery and corruption as well as an insult to my sense of honour and self-respect.“

The youth leaders were saddled with regret, felt dejected, humiliated and vowed to get even. Their meeting with Xuma was at best unedifying. As the conference date approached, they lobbied other suitable candidates such as Professor Z.K Mathews and A.P Mda. But their unavailability complicated matters and risked thwarting their plans.

The Youth League needed a senior candidate who could match and aptly rival the academic accomplishments of Xuma. When the conference opened at the Magasa Hall in Batho Location in Bloemfontein, the youth still did not have a candidate. They had hoped that Xuma would change his mind. When he refused to change his mind they engaged in a frantic search for a suitable alternative. Just before the elections, O. R Tambo suggested that they approach Dr J. S. Moroka who was based in Thaba Nchu in the Free State.

Dr J.S Moroka became the suitable replacement candidate and, given the string of his academic attainments, most of which were attained overseas, fitted the bill. Moreover, he was prepared to accept and support the precondition of the ANC Youth League by endorsing the Program of Action.

What lessons can we draw from these vital historical experiences? What is salutary to note is that ANC Youth League brought about a culture where leaders were tied to some political pre-conditions. The culture of free -wheeling and fellow travelling was no longer tolerated. Leadership popularity was also not a guiding criterion but subscription to a tangible ideological thrust became a sine qua non for election.

The ANC Youth League demonstrated that the ANC leadership was not a preserve of all and sundry who are capable of raising a hand. Even in a beauty contest questions are asked to assess the fecundity of thought of contestants. As the ANC heads for its elective conference in a few days’ time, the lessons from history seem to evade the sights of its members and leaders alike.

The forthcoming elective ANC conference must be a referendum on certain ideological direction that is necessary to salvage the organisation. It must be a referendum on the state of the nation and the many promises of better life promised to the poor. It must be a referendum on the caliber of leadership and its ability to carry along the tradition of service, sacrifice for the betterment of our people.

As things stand, there are no preconditions for the assumption of leadership in the ANC these days. ANC members ask nothing of their leaders and naturally or invariably should expect nothing from their leaders who are contesting to lead. The increased numbers of candidates vying for every top six position attests to the fact that the gates have been opened widely for all and sundry. The political views of most of these leaders are not known on any major decisive issue.

When politics cease to be about politics and instead become a game of personalities, then the rot has set in too deep. Then we have slid into a cesspool of idiocy, mediocrity and egotistical conduct. When the leadership contest is no longer about best possible ideas and best available cadres to take both the organisation and country forward then, “things have fallen apart.” When individual leader’s bank balances and financial backing carry the day, then the movement ‘s entire history is auctioned on a cheap pedestal because, it will not be the African people who sign such huge cheques.

The bar has been lowered to pathetic levels. Truth be told the bar has been removed altogether hence the surging mob of contestants vying to lead us into damnation. The state of the nation has never been this bad with alarming unemployment, skyrocketing crime, decaying infrastructure, xenophobia, state paralysis and the leadership that has no plan, let alone a response to these malaise. Undeterred and unashamed they avail themselves again to further the rot and to complete the heist. They make no praiseworthy attempt to ameliorate the lot of the poor.

With such a dire state of affairs, from whence will the salvation of our people come? We have become all things to all men and to the world and have become nothing to our people. To say that our people have lost confidence in our leadership and movement would be missing the point. They have been betrayed and sold out in broad daylight. All the sacrifices of our forebears and the many lessons of Tambo, Steve Biko and Chris Hani have fallen on hard rock.

Our leaders lead us without care, without a conscience and with utter disgust at our needs. They delight in being patted on the back by colonial and western overlords for doing their bidding. Our leaders have a distant relationship with poverty, load-shedding, high food prices and crime, given the security that surrounds them. The people that they lead suffer hell everyday and still they care very much less.

How do they lead people whose pain they do not feel, whose tears they do see and whose echoing cry they do not hear? The national assets of our people are parcelled out to foreign interests without conditions. We have no majority shares in our wealth and our copper, gold, diamonds, coal fill the pockets of western industries and nations.

Never have we ever thought that we would be betrayed so unashamedly and in such a callous manner by those at the helm of our liberation movement. Never, in our wildest dreams, have we ever thought that our people would one day tell us that that they lived better under white apartheid rule. Never have we imagined that the past heinous apartheid system would be looked at fondly by our people who were it’s very victim. “We were oppressed by employed! We were oppressed but trains were moving! We were oppressed but roads and hospitals were better and crime was low.!” they shout in agony.

Never have we ever thought that even the basic infrastructure that we inherited from apartheid would be destroyed in such a brazen manner. Even the basic infrastructure that thrived under apartheid has been decimated under the absent watch of our leaders.

Our leaders lack a sense of apperception, compassion and devotion to the poor. Placating the poor with social grants deepens dependency and poverty. Our people have to grind their teeth in horror at the institutionalisation of their poverty. Their land will never come back and so is their dignity. They must reconcile themselves to their lot because the saviour is not coming any time soon. In short people have been asked to administer their own domination.

Evidently, our leaders are no longer in the ranks of the economically oppressed, socially exploited, politically denigrated and spiritually maligned. They have become an elevated class far above the normative lives of the poor, hence their abbreviated relationship with the lot of our people. Our leaders have been denuded of all the remaining glittering respect that they were garbed in by the people. Their collective performance is an anthem of pity and revulsion.

The verdict of the forthcoming elective conference is that it will be a compensation for both betrayal and myopia knowing that lip-service will be paid to radical policies that will never be implemented. The struggle to salvage and to rescue the ANC must be waged with all brutal intensity. The people and their ability to mobilise society on a variety of issues must be stepped up. Grassroots initiatives and community activism must be revived for communities to master their own fate and direction.

“What art though that thunder so loud that you cannot be heard”!

*Thami ka Plaatjie is Director the Pan African Foundation