By: Gillian Schutte
Lindiwe Sisulu and Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma have strategically forged a partnership in the race for the positions of ANC presidency and Deputy Presidency. This is good news for women in South Africa. It is also good news for those with more progressive politics since both Sisulu and Dlamini-Zuma are outspoken about their Pan-African, decolonisation ideology. This is a breath of fresh air given the increasingly right-wing and draconian trajectory of the Ramaphosa faction.
Sisulu has made her position clear when, in an unprecedented move from an ANC Minister, she wrote an article earlier this year criticising the judiciary for its role in the ongoing colonial systemic that prevails in a democratic South Africa – one that has kept the historically raced population in a master/slave trope with the majority Africans still usurped of land and economic, cultural and spiritual agency. She went even further to defy her detractors in their vitriolic media campaign against her when she refused to crumble under the weight of rumour mongering, insults and defamation – particularly from those corporate media tabloid journalists passing themselves off as investigative doyens. The venom spewed against her did nothing more than expose their own conservative bias in pervasive reportage that is evidently sponsored to push the politics of the corporate sector and the Western Bloc faction in the ANC and sully, apparently by any means necessary, the more left BRICS-friendly camp.
Despite what these detractors espouse, it cannot be denied that both women have a formidable history in the ANC government as well as Educational backgrounds that put many of the top leaders to shame. Sisulu has not only been a former liberation fighter and senior in the MK, but also holds a senior position in the NEC, being one of the longest serving ministers in the cabinet. She has an track record in good governance, an impressive academic record and has published several academic articles pertaining to women’s contribution to the struggle, women in the agricultural sector, and worker women’s rights amongst others. This should endear her to many women from across the sectors, especially if her campaign highlights her contributions to knowledge-production around issues that affect their lives. Her CV is studded with global awards and currently she is doing her second PhD with Leeds University. She has also held the office of Minister of Defence and Military Veterans, Minister of Public Service and Administration, Minister of Housing, Minister of Intelligence, Minister of Human Settlements, Water and Sanitation, and Minister of International Relations and co-operation. She is currently the Minister of Tourism. In addition her work on the anti-corruption bill and her history of cleaning up corruption in her various departments will stand her in good stead with many voters who are sick and tired of the news around endless corruption and patronage within the ANC and the business sector.
Dlamini Zulu also has an impressive track record in the struggle as a student leader and attained her medical degree at a time when to be black and female meant exclusion. She has held top office in the ANC government as well as being the first female chair of the AU. Since
1994 Dlamini-Zuma has been Minister of Health, and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Minister of Home Affairs, in which portfolio she was credited with turning around a dysfunctional department. Under President Cyril Ramaphosa she served as Minister in the Presidency for Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation, with responsibility for the National Planning Commission, and is currently the Minister of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs.
While detractors will argue otherwise and cite all sorts of failures attributed to both Sisulu and Dlamini-Zuma in an attempt to render their experience null and void, they can never eradicate the fact that both women have years of hard work, overcoming obstacles, and successes behind their names. Where there have been failures both have admitted to their mistakes. This is not a matter of selecting women for leadership positions simply because they are women. Both have run the gauntlet of patriarchy since they joined the ANC in their youth as well as in the post struggle ANC administration. They are both powerful and dynamic women. The wealth of administrative and hands-on governance experience they have, both individually and between them, would ensure a high-level competent leadership such as we have not seen in years.
And surely it is about time that South Africa caught up with the global trend of electing women to top positions – in particular as heads of state. Frankly we are tired of ANC’s culture of patriarchal impunity. It seems they are more interested in using the women in their ranks as virtual human-shields to hide their plentiful shenanigans behind. ANC has a history of women seemingly ‘taking the fall’ for President Ramaphosa’s mistakes, amongst others. It also has a history of providing the conditions for woman-on-woman violence and weakening the ANC Women’s League by fracturing unity amongst its members. Some may decree that this argument takes away the agency of the women in question – but we all know that in a patriarchal system women are often forced into compromising positions merely to survive. They are often forced to compromise on their own ideological values too, so entrenched is the hegemony of the patriarchy.
Patriarchy is most obviously seen in the historical norm of most countries being ruled almost entirely by men. But recent history has shown that more and more countries are electing women to high political offices, including as heads of state. The United Nations’ UN Women division, has recently reported that globally, since September 2021, 26 women were serving as Heads of State and/or Government in 24 countries. 2022 saw more women being voted in as heads of state. The report goes on to state that: ‘many of these women are being praised for their innovative and effective leadership and for offering unique and fresh perspectives on the challenges their countries face.’
As I’ve argued before, when women are elected to top positions that enable them to express their own value systems without fear or favour, this unleashes great potential for change. Both Sisulu and Dlamini-Zuma are high-potential conduits for the change that the majority have been clamouring for since 1994.
What is clear though, is that Sisulu and Dlamini-Zuma are perceived as a threat by both white monopoly capital and their lackeys in the ANC. Just as the sexual assault case brought against Finance Minister, Enoch Godongwana, became a threat to the neoliberal economy so too is the potential of a progressive President and Deputy President in South Africa, perceived as a threat to the Western economic stranglehold over the land’s resources and discourse. In this regard we are sure to see (yet again) guns blazing to destroy this campaign through well-funded smear crusades aided and abetted by white capital and the corporate media in South Africa. This is another gauntlet for the pair to run.
Perhaps it is time for them to state publicly their pro-decolonisation manifesto for South Africa, because after all their success or failure lies with the branch votes rather than the general public and it is in branches where the people’s hopes and aspirations are to be found, rather than in the poison pens of privileged journalists.
*Gillian Schutte is an award-winning independent filmmaker, writer, and social justice activist. She is a founding member of Media for Justice.
