A matter of life and death

The National Party was established under the leadership of General J.B.M. Hertzog in July 1914. Ninety years later, in August 2004, it effectively decided to dissolve itself.

When General Hertzog led his faction out of the 1913 Congress of the South African Party (SAP), opening the way to the formation of the National Party the following year, he differed with his fellow Boer War Generals, Louis Botha and Jan Smuts, on two major questions.

These were the position of the Afrikaner, and the resolution of the Native Question, in the newly formed Union of South Africa. In 1912, to the anger of his colleagues in the SAP, and the consternation of English-speaking South Africa, he said, "South Africa is to be ruled by Afrikaners."

In the same year, as Minister of Native Affairs, to the anger of the South African Native National Congress, later renamed the ANC, and the African masses it represented, he started formulating what became the 1913 Native Lands Act. He argued that "separate development", based on the formation of what later were called Bantustans and Group Areas, was the only logical and correct response to the Native Question.

The New National Party decided to cease to exist in 2004, shortly after our third democratic General Election, having campaigned on the platform that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, and that the country's future and the welfare of all our people could only be guaranteed by the entrenchment of a non-racial democracy.

As General Hertzog put down his markers in 1912, and as the ANC was born, the weekly periodical, 'South Africa', published in London, carried a small snippet of news. Under the heading, "A Very Raw Kafir", it reported: "The 'Pilgrims and Sabie News' commiserates with a lady in camp who was trying to break in a raw boy. Calling him into the bedroom she told him to throw the bucket of water away. He did so promptly - across the carpet. Scolding him, she told him to get a cloth and wipe it up quickly. He did so with the master's shirt from the bedrail."

During January of the same year, appalled at the idea of political rights for very raw Kafirs, 'South Africa' issued dire warnings against Dr Abdurahman, leader of the African People's Organisation (APO), after he had made an Address, which the journal described as "A Dangerous Speech". At the most recent Congress of the APO, Dr Aburahman had said that as a result of the racist policies of the Union government, "a deep-seated feeling of passive hatred is being engendered against the white races", and that "white policy means a war of extermination against coloured races and natives."

'South Africa' said, "The Whites of South Africa are now united and, while on perfectly good terms with the Blacks, will make short work of any who try to bring further bloodshed into their country. Anyone who incited to such crime as the stirring up of one colour against another should, on being found guilty, receive a sentence of ten years' penal servitude. The only way in which the natives of South Africa can be helped is by being taught to help themselves. They will not learn this lesson if their minds are inflated by grossly coloured misconceptions implanted to serve the reckless ends of agitators and notoriety hunters.

"We believe there is a place in South Africa for the Black as much as the White, and that the two races may serve each other well, both playing their part in building up the country's great future.The man (such as Dr Abdurahman), who seeks to subvert South Africa's unique social system is no less a danger to the community because he may be acting with no deliberately malicious intention. Whether knave or fool, he must, in the public interest, be taught to exercise restraint."

The journal 'South Africa' was accusing Dr Abdurahman of what in modern parlance would be denounced as "playing the race card"!

Two months later, the journal praised "Mr John L. Dube, of Natal", contrasting him with Dr Abdurahman. Of him it said that the " 'first Inter-African Native Congress of all South Africa' elected Mr Dube, in his absence, as its President." It saw him as one of the "few educated natives who, it is hoped, will come to exercise a beneficial influence upon the millions of their fellow-countrymen who are living on the neutral ground between civilisation and barbarism."

It went on to say, "For the present the natives would certainly do well to eschew politics and to concentrate upon such matters as education and social elevation, a larger amount of technical skill tending to the promotion of both. It is not in competition with the White man, but in the uplifting of his own race that the native of South Africa may best find an outlet for his legitimate aspirations."

In three long articles at the end of the year, 'South Africa' summarised South African developments during the year 1912. It was so certain about the correctness of its injunction that "the natives would certainly do well to eschew politics" that it completely excluded any mention of the establishment of the "first Inter-African Native Congress of all South Africa".

The following year, in March 1913, 'South Africa' published an editorial headed, "Towards a Native Policy". It wrote: "While we have pointed out the absurdity of General Hertzog's segregation fad, which would have cut off from one another the White and coloured varieties of humanity, like different kinds of animals separated by iron network in some urban Zoo, we none the less recognised several important facts.

"One of these, and a very important one, is the impossibility of White and Black living side by side in South Africa under any conditions of political, economic, or social equality. The races can come into contact most amicably so long as the White is the employer and the Black the employed, or they may even meet in the course of business - which is a great leveller while the business lasts - or occasionally in a professional capacity, such as in legal, educational, or religious matters, but in these latter directions it is always well understood that the Black man represents only his own people, and that he does so by virtue of his superior education.

"Assured (by the 1913 Land Act) against occupation of their land by European settlers, it would rest with the natives themselves as to how soon and to what extent they may be charged with the administration of purely local affairs."

And yet, despite this Native Policy, in essence no different from that of General Hertzog, 'South Africa' hated the General with rare passion. One of the reasons for this hatred was the General's Afrikaner nationalism, which came to be represented by the National Party, and was seen as hostile to the interests of English-speaking South Africa.

The other was his call for "South Africa first", expressing his opposition to the continued British imperialist domination of South Africa. When Louis Botha dropped Hertzog from the Cabinet in 1912, Hertzog's supporters said he had become "a victim on the altar of Imperialism." Hertzog himself said Louis Botha "has embraced (British) Jingoism, and this is sufficient reason why he should not continue in office."

The periodical 'South Africa' drew great pride in the reality and strength of the British Empire, and placed its hopes to 'keep the Native in his place ', on white Anglo-Boer unity. Accordingly, it could not but oppose General Hertzog, regardless of the coincidence of views and policies with regard to the Native Question, and the shared commitment to the maintenance of white supremacy.

So intense was its aversion to the General, that, hardly four months after he was dismissed from the Cabinet, it wrongly forecast his almost immediate disappearance from the political scene. The editorial it published, entitled "The Fury of Hertzog", was so eloquent that it is worth quoting at some length. It said:

"There is much virtue in not knowing when one is beaten, provided that the stubbornness is in a good cause. But there is another kind of obstinacy which seems utterly useless, especially to the person exercising it.

"Such is the magnificent but futile courage of those swarms of lemmings (small arctic rodents), which, every year, plunge into the water off the Scandinavian coast and try to swim across the North Sea, oblivious of the fact that it is now a good deal wider than when their ancestors acquired this curious habit and passed it on to their unfortunate descendants. General Hertzog is rather bigger than a lemming, but his present actions are just as useless, and as self-destructive.

"He resembles an angry buffalo turned out of the herd, seeking a blind revenge by butting against the rocks of the nearest krantz.The Hertzogian drum is a noisy nuisance, but it is not a weapon of which anyone need be afraid, and General Botha will not be scared out of office in this fashion."

In time, the successors of General Hertzog chased General Botha's political descendants out of office. The National Party came into its own. At last, it had realised the objective to institute Afrikaner rule. It gained the possibility to wrench South Africa out of the clutches of the dying British Empire. It acquired the freedom to "cut off from one another the White and coloured varieties of humanity, like different kinds of animals separated by iron network in some urban Zoo", through its apartheid policies.

It could now treat the very raw Kafirs according to their deserts, with no need to engage in a deceitful pretence that "the Whites of South Africa (were) on perfectly good terms with the Blacks", pontificating that "the two races may serve each other well, both playing their part in building up the country's great future." Robben Island prison was ready to accommodate the "agitators and notoriety hunters".

Whatever the journal 'South Africa' thought were the "legitimate aspirations" of Black South Africans, and whatever the political descendants of General Hertzog thought about the permanence of Afrikaner rule, history proved both wrong.

The natives had refused to eschew politics. They had rebelled against the attempt to rob them of their country and to consign them to a Zoo, separated from the rest of their motherland and other South Africans by Hertzog's "iron network".

In 1994, eight decades after the National Party was established, Hertzog's political descendants participated in our country's first democratic General Elections, the struggle of the oppressed having given them no choice but to negotiate a political resolution of both the Native Question and White fears.

The very fact of those elections as well as their outcome, spelt an end to the Afrikaner rule for which General J.B.M. Hertzog had fought, and an end to the Anglo-Boer domination represented by General Louis Botha. However hesitantly, the National Party had come to the conclusion that what it had stood for and done was wrong. It had decided that the future lay in an honest acceptance of the proposition that "the two races (must) serve each other well, both playing their part in building up the country's great future".

When it adopted these positions, it "committed suicide". It condemned itself to its own demise. Nature itself would not allow that those who had been the architects of a pernicious racist order, built on the foundations of white racism that was centuries old, should, overnight, become the midwives of a society in which Black and White would live side-by-side, in "conditions of political, economic, (and) social equality", with nobody confined to a Zoo.

As the National Party celebrated its 80th Anniversary in July 1994, one of the questions that remained to be answered was when, finally, the ghost of the National Party would be laid to rest. The second was whether the members and supporters of the Party would perish politically with their historic Party, or redefine themselves to help determine the future of what had permanently become a non-racial democracy.

For eight decades, and longer, the politics of our country had been defined by an unrelenting contest between two perspectives - one in favour of democracy and non-racism, and the other in favour of racism and white minority domination. In our first democratic elections the one had emerged the victor, and the other had lost power forever.

The Democratic Party walked into the breach. It understood that even though the political apartheid system had died, apartheid ideas in the minds of those who had derived comfort and benefit from this system had not died. As the party of apartheid necessarily and inevitably committed suicide, the party of white liberalism opened its doors to those who refused to redefine themselves as opponents of the system and ideology they had upheld for generations.

Never able to play any significant role in the previous four decades, the death of the apartheid system gave the party of white liberalism an unprecedented lease of life, with the possibility to thrive as a meaningful opposition and, hopefully, - and in real terms - a government-in-waiting. To achieve this objective, its first task had to be attract into its ranks and contingent of supporters those who could not think beyond what had evolved from the legacy left behind by General Hertzog.

Immediately after the 90th Anniversary of the National Party, in August 2004, the leadership of the New National Party took the unavoidable decision that the time had come to lay the ghost of the Party to rest. At the same time, it took another decision that was by no means inevitable, and that cannot but be described as courageous and far-sighted.

It recommended that its members and supporters should join the ANC. Having accepted the inevitability and justice of a non-racial democracy, it took the logical step to encourage its members and supporters to join and support the oldest political formation in our country, which is even older that the National Party, that had for 92 years upheld and fought for the realisation of the vision of a democratic and non-racial South Africa.

By this means, it gave a new meaning to General Hertzog's call - South Africa first! It made the statement that the Party it led had to die, so that Black and White could, together, "play their part in building up the country's great future". It made the statement boldly and unequivocally -not the Party first, not white interests first, but South Africa first!

These developments may have taken those who constitute the black majority by surprise, despite the fact that for many decades they have accepted that the Afrikaners that the National Party led are Africans like themselves. But they will not say they are amazed. They will say that, finally, these white Africans, whatever their numbers, have shed whatever remained that still tempted them to regard themselves as Europeans, and a European outpost in darkest Africa.

Those who have not accepted this historical and historic outcome have already started their campaign to denigrate and belittle this result, as they were bound to, in their own interest. What would have best served their interests would have been for the leaders of the New National Party, as they laid to rest the ghost of a Party whose time had passed, to recite a funeral oration proclaiming the fears they continue to harbour about the future of those they had represented and led.

But, remarkably, the political descendants of General Hertzog have taken the decision that they will not be lemmings that seem condemned to demonstrate magnificent but futile courage. They have decided that they will not engage in a useless and self-destructive exercise to defend as much of the past as they can, simply because they find it impossible to break with a curious habit they acquired from their ancestors, thus burdening themselves with the destiny forever to remain the unfortunate descendants.

But others have taken their place, who should learn that perhaps there is much virtue in not knowing when one is beaten, provided that the stubbornness is in a good cause. But, like lemmings, they demonstrate a kind of obstinacy that is utterly useless, because the historical setting has changed fundamentally and irrevocably.

Bereft of any good cause, they arrogantly and falsely present themselves as the sole bulwark against an impending and assured emergence of an anti-democratic one party state. Like General Hertzog, these are rather bigger than lemmings, however equally useless their efforts.

The drum they beat is but a noisy nuisance. It is not a weapon of which the democratic and non-racial order need be afraid. And the masses of our people will not be persuaded by empty noise to abandon their long established national movement for democracy and non-racism, which members of the New National Party have opted to join and support, merely because of a drum that is nothing more than a noisy nuisance.

The President thanks the women of South Africa

The day before the publication of this edition of ANC TODAY, an important and moving event took place at the Johannesburg Headquarters of the company established by black women, WIPHOLD.

The occasion served to celebrate both Women's Month and the 10th Anniversary of our liberation. It was also an occasion to salute WIPHOLD, which is also celebrating its own 10th Anniversary, having been formed shortly before the 1994 elections, which gave us our Freedom Day.

Two hundred women and about 10 men attended the event. The occasion and the venue dictated that such should be the composition of the August 12 gathering. Those present were essentially, but not exclusively, our country' s black businesswomen, as well as professionals. And they came from all parts of our country, and not just Johannesburg and Gauteng.

All of us were convened mainly by three of our women business leaders, Danisa Baloyi, Gloria Serobe and Louisa Mojela. They brought those of our women business leaders who could come, to acknowledge and express their appreciation of what our young democracy had done to open doors for them as black women, and women.

But they also brought the women together to pledge to contribute whatever they can to entrench our democracy and help create a better life for all our people. And more specifically, they recommitted themselves to the promotion of the central cause of gender equality and the emancipation of women.

WIPHOLD itself has as one of its goals the task "actively to promote women from all levels of society, especially black women, participating in economic activities to support them." Accordingly, during the August 12 event, it announced the establishment of a Women's Development Fund, which was immediately capitalised at R2,5 million.

WIPHOLD provided R1 million to this Fund, with Standard Bank and ABB supplying the rest. This demonstrated that especially our black women leaders, whatever their own limitations, are determined to contribute concretely to the realisation of their stated objective of promoting women from all levels of society, especially black women.

A number of the women spoke briefly during this unforgettable evening, raising a number of important matters. The comments they made confirmed the centrality of a number of issues that our movement, our governments in all spheres, and our people as a whole must take seriously. Some of these are that:

• the emancipation, upliftment and empowerment of the women of South Africa, black and white, are fundamental to the birth of our new nation;
• all this should be done with the women, and not just for them as passive beneficiaries;
• this process must not only benefit a thin upper stratum of successful women, but women as a whole, including the poorest and the most disadvantaged in our urban and rural areas;
• given the opportunity, which is all they are asking for, the women are capable of matching and surpassing men in achieving success in all fields; (present in the room were company owners, company executives, managers, accountants, finance experts, scientists, engineers, lawyers, medical doctors and other professionals, elected public representatives, and others;);
• the process of black economic empowerment should not marginalize women, treating them as token "five percenters", given limited participation merely to demonstrate that the women have not been forgotten;
• neither should they be confined to a ghetto, patronisingly described as "the most disadvantaged", and shoved into one basket containing the women, the youth and people with disabilities;
• real and meaningful resources should be provided by both the public and private sectors, genuinely to secure the advancement of the women of our country;
• even the most successful among the women never lose their sensitivity to the reality that much work remains to be done to end poverty and underdevelopment in our country: neither do they forget their own obligation to help address this challenge;
• however much they succeed as individuals, they will not and should not forget the reality that it is the process of national liberation that has given them the possibility to succeed; and,
• they are therefore committed to ensure that they contribute to the defence of our democratic gains and the further entrenchment of the genuine transformation process.

Apart from the centrally important matters I have mentioned, the women business leaders also convened to do something else that was for us, the ANC leaders present at this Women's Month occasion, truly humbling, moving and inspiring.

On their own, the cadre of leaders of our people who gathered at the WIPHOLD Headquarters, an important echelon of the women of our country, had decided that they wanted to contribute to the funds of the ANC. The event on August 12 was therefore also an ANC fund-raising activity, conceived of and organised by this cadre of our national leadership.

One after the other they went to the podium to announce the contributions they were making, both as individuals and as companies. These included contributions made by the children, who told their mothers they were ready and willing to sacrifice their pocket money to help their movement, the ANC.

Some of these children asked their mothers to tell the President that they wanted to meet him to discuss some important issues. One complained that the President had not replied to his or her letter. Another, having visited the President at the Union Buildings, concluded that the President has no real tasks to perform, apart from flying around to deliver speeches.

Because we lived in, and in the vicinity of Johannesburg, many of us at the gathering drove to WIPHOLD Headquarters. But others had to cover longer distances, having to travel by air. And they came from as far away as Cape Town, the Eastern Cape, the Free State, KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo and the North West. They came because they, like the rest, had decided, on their own, that they should do something for their movement, rather than ask their movement to do something for them.

One after the other they stood up to say thank you to the ANC for everything it had done and was doing, which had created the space for them to take to the road towards the realisation of their dreams. One after the other they stood up to say that without the struggle the ANC led and leads, we would not be meeting at WIPHOLD Headquarters, because there would have been no WIPHOLD, and no black women business leaders to come to the WIPHOLD Headquarters, with something to hand over to their movement.

But as they spoke, the officials of the ANC present knew that without the women of our country, the ANC the women were saluting would never have had the possibility to do the things they said it had done and was doing. We knew that even as they paid tribute to the ANC, the ANC could not be, without them, because they constitute one of its inalienable particles.

As they spoke, we could not but hear the order of the day that the ANC has an obligation never to betray the trust of the women, the children and the people of our country. With no deep pockets, they nevertheless reached into their shallow pockets to give what they could, so that their movement should have the capacity to continue to serve the women, the children and the people of South Africa.

To them all, I extend our humble thanks, the humble thanks of our leadership and membership, of the millions in our country, women, children and men, who, though poor, walk with a spring in their steps, because freedom has restored their sense of dignity and self-worth, and given them the priceless gift of hope.

I thank them because what they did during one autumn night contributed magnificently to our possibility to say to those who may have nothing but dignity and hope, that the blessings of the summer rains are not far behind.

One of the women said one puts on beautiful clothes as a mark of celebration, joy and happiness. And all of them had come to WIPHOLD Headquarters dressed beautifully.

During the evening I learnt of something called "a killer slit". Advisedly, or so I thought, imagining what a killing slit, like a soldier's bayonet, could do to one's throat, I moved as far away as I could, to get out of harm 's way. By the time I came to know that it described the dramatic design of a skirt, it was too late to come closer, at least to appreciate the perfectly harmless aesthetic effect of the killer slit, so to speak.

Municipal Infrastructure

New grant to fast track local delivery

A new national grant designed to speed up local delivery was launched this week in Ekurhuleni by representatives of all three spheres of government.

The Municipal Infrastructure Grant (MIG), which will amount to R15,6 billion over the next three years, places municipalities at the centre of local economic development and delivery of municipal infrastructure. It will drastically fast track the improvement of service delivery at local government level. The grant will also help government realise its goal of halving unemployment and poverty by 2014.

Through MIG, government would be able to pay a more focused attention to expanding access and improving quality of services in areas such as the provision of water, sanitation, roads, solid waste, community lighting and other community facilities.

The provision of these services and assets will be undertaken within the guidelines of the Expanded Public Works Programme, whose primary focus is on labour intensive methods of construction. Provincial and Local Government Minister Sydney Mufamadi said: "Our goal is to ensure that over 375,000 households benefit through the provision of clean water and that over 300,000 households benefit through access to basic sanitation in the 2004/5 financial year."

The MIG seeks to establish a single consolidated funding mechanism to support municipal infrastructure and replaces all existing municipal capital grants such as the Consolidated Municipal Infrastructure Programme, Local Economic Development Fund, Water Services Project, Municipal Sports and Recreation Programme, the National Electrification Programme to local government, and the Urban Transport Fund.

The grant aims to make the transfers to municipalities simpler, more certain and direct. Its conditions are more flexible, designed to support the capital budgets of municipalities and to facilitate integrated planning.

This financial year, an amount of R4,4 billion has been allocated to municipalities for basic services and infrastructure investment, increasing to R5,2 billion in the next financial year and to R6 billion in the 2006/7 financial year.

Among the benefits of improved investment in local infrastructure will be the extension of the free basic services programme to more communities. Speaking on his department's budget vote earlier this year, Mufamadi said the success of this investment in basic infrastructure will enable greater gains to be made in the roll-out of the free basic services programme. "This programme is pivotal in extending the social safety net to the most vulnerable in our communities. In 2004 we will aggressively increase the coverage to communities who have not benefited to date," he said.

Improving local government delivery is not limited to the more efficient provision of funding. There are significant problems of capacity at local government level, reducing the ability of councils to plan, implement and monitor delivery effectively.

"As government, not only do we need to establish more policy coherence among the various dimensions of our work but also, we need to pay priority attention to the technical requirements for good governance," Mufamadi said. His department was identifying a number of municipalities experiencing a short-term need for an intense, hands-on support. A high-calibre team would then be assembled and deployed to work with municipalities to tackle the identified tasks.

Since this support is meant to fade out over time, provinces would immediately replicate this process in order to position themselves to continue to support municipalities in their own areas of jurisdiction. The municipalities concerned would "fully embrace this as an opportunity for them to learn by doing".

"The intervention we speak of will ensure a more proficient use of resources derived from nationally raised revenue, to benefit the indigent and to operationalise government policy on the provision of basic services. We seek to make local government more dependable as an enabler for provincial and national departments to realise their development and delivery targets," Mufamadi said.

More Information:

• Department of Provincial and Local Government

MP Travel Vouchers

Investigation should support public accountability

The investigation by the National Prosecuting Authority into the alleged misuse of parliamentary travel vouchers is an important part of the combined effort of all South Africans to ensure that our public institutions are accountable for the use of public funds.

It is therefore important that all South Africans, including the media, political parties and MPs themselves, support the investigation and respect the due process of law.

The ANC was this week presented with a list of ANC Members of Parliament being investigated by the Scorpions with respect to the alleged misuse of parliamentary travel vouchers. Two other parties, the Democratic Alliance (DA) and New National Party (NNP), also received the names of their members being investigated. The ANC has indicated it will do everything within its power to ensure the full cooperation of its members with the Scorpions' investigation.

Even before the parties had received this information from Parliament's Presiding Officers, who had been handed the names by the National Prosecuting Authority, there were calls from some quarters, including from the media, for the parties or Parliament to make these names public.

The ANC is not releasing the names of those of its MPs under investigation because that is not its role. The decision whether or not to make public the names of people under investigation falls within the ambit of the relevant investigating authority, in this case the Scorpions. It is for the investigators to determine whether making public the names of people under investigation is the correct thing to do in the context of their investigation and with respect to the rights of citizens. The ANC's role is to ensure that its members cooperate fully with the investigation, and that it acts against any members found guilty.

To ensure that justice is done, and to ensure that the integrity of our public institutions is upheld, the law must take its course. Individuals implicated or charged in this matter should be presumed innocent until found otherwise. For its part, the ANC will act, in accordance with the disciplinary code contained in its constitution, against any of its public representatives found guilty of such conduct.

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