DRC: Forward Ever, Backward Never!

A few days ago, on the 15th and the 16th, we were in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo. We had returned to the DRC to witness a critically important event in the evolution of this sister country towards democracy and lasting peace, as well as convey a message of congratulations and solidarity from our government and people to the Congolese government and people.

On 16 May, the Congolese Houses of Parliament convened formally to adopt a new Constitution, which will supersede the current Transitional Constitution under which the DRC is currently governed.

At this joint sitting of the Houses of Parliament, the Speaker of the National Assembly, the Hon Olivier Kamitatu, handed the Constitution to President Joseph Kabila, with the request that he takes the necessary steps to seek the approval of the Constitution by the Congolese people, by referendum.

Our delegation could not but recall a similar solemn and happy occasion that had taken place in our country almost exactly nine years before. On 8 May 1996, our own National Parliament had convened in a joint sitting, as the Constitutional Assembly, to adopt our own final Constitution, which superseded our Interim Constitution.

As we sat in the Congolese Houses of Parliament, privileged to share an historic moment with the leaders of the Congolese people and diplomats representing many nations, as well as the UN, we could not but recall what our new constitutional order has meant and means for our country and people.

It has meant that after a protracted and costly struggle, we managed to enshrine in the basic law of the land the demand contained in the Freedom Charter – the people shall govern.

It has meant that we created the conditions for our people to live together in peace, as brothers and sisters, overcoming centuries of division and conflict in a spirit of national reconciliation, understanding that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, united in their diversity.

It has meant that as a people, we have given ourselves the possibility to build our country together, determined to achieve the goal of the eradication of poverty and underdevelopment, to guarantee the material and spiritual fulfilment of all our people.

At the luncheon hosted by President Kabila in our honour after the parliamentary session, we had the possibility to convey the heartfelt wishes of our people that with the approval of their own Constitution, the Congolese people have also placed themselves on course towards democracy, national unity and reconciliation, and a shared prosperity for all the people of the DRC.

We also pledged our country’s continued support for the Congolese people as they worked together to implement the provisions contained in the two fundamental documents of the Congolese transition, the Global and Inclusive Agreement and the Transitional Constitution. This includes such determinations they would make, on the recommendation of the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC), as to when the elections would be held.

The Global and Inclusive Agreement and the Transitional Constitution negotiated by the leaders of the Congolese people at Sun City and Pretoria (Tshwane), provide that once it was constituted in terms of the Transitional Constitution, the Transitional Parliament of the DRC should draft the final Constitution of the DRC. This has now been done.

That Agreement and the Transitional Constitution also require that the final Constitution should also be approved by the referendum to which the Hon Kamitatu referred. These documents also require that democratic elections should be held two years after the Transitional Government takes power.

That two-year period ends on 30 June this year, the 45th anniversary of the independence of the DRC. However, bearing in mind the difficulties that might arise during the two-year transitional period, the Global and Inclusive Agreement and the Transitional Constitution provide that the transitional period could be extended by up to a year, to June 2006, to give enough time to prepare for truly democratic elections.

The Transitional Constitution therefore gives powers to the IEC to approach Parliament to recommend an extension of the transitional period for a maximum of two six-month periods.

The IEC has now done this. It has presented proposals to the Congolese Parliament suggesting the timeframes for the conduct of the referendum and the national elections, consistent with the directives contained in the Global and Inclusive Agreement and the Transitional Constitution.

During the 16 May session, President Kabila urged the assembled Members of the Congolese Parliament urgently to consider the submission of the IEC. To the warm applause of the Members of Parliament, he reaffirmed the commitment of the leaders of the Congolese transition to honour the obligation contained in the Global and Inclusive Agreement and the Transitional Constitution to hold free, fair and democratic elections by no later than June 2006, within time frames that would be set by the IEC.

For almost all the 45 years of its existence as an independent country, the DRC has not had governments given legitimacy by having been freely chosen by the Congolese people. The first and only such legitimate government was led by the great Congolese and African patriot, Patrice Lumumba.

That government lasted less than a year. Having acceded to his position as the first Prime Minister of an independent Congo on 30 June 1960, Patrice Lumumba was brutally murdered in January 1961.

That ended the Congolese democratic project and, for decades, made it impossible for its people to take advantage of their emancipation from colonial and imperialist domination to build a new life for themselves, centred on the material and spiritual fulfilment of every Congolese citizen.

In truth the six months between the accession of the DRC to independence and the death of Patrice Lumumba was but a brief flash of hope in a period of despair for the Congolese people, which began when a Portuguese ship, captained by Diogo Cão, sailed a short distance up the River Congo in 1482.

Not long after, the export of the Congolese to the western hemisphere as slaves began. As that ended, King Leopold of Belgium appropriated the Congo as his personal property, and subjected its people to a process of rapine that decimated its people as cruelly as had done the slave trade.

This situation did not change much when, as King Leopold directed in his will, the Congo formally became a colonial possession of the Kingdom of Belgium. The post World War II African and Congolese rebellion against colonialism and imperialism gave the Congolese people a period of six months of hope that, at last, they were free of almost half-a-millennium of the most brutal oppression, exploitation and brutalisation.

But this was not to be. In the end, after the murder of Patrice Lumumba, for many decades, the Congolese people were subjected to the rapacious rule of Mobutu Sese Seko. Before and after he died, the Congolese people were to be subjected to further torment through war, including invasions by some of their neighbours.

With the installation of the Transitional Government in 2003, hope returned to the Congolese people that the fire lit when Patrice Lumumba spoke of his people’s hopes on 30 June 1960 would be rekindled. The adoption of the final Constitution by the Transitional Parliament on 16 May constituted an act of affirmation that the people of the Congo were not wrong when, in 2003, they celebrated the dawning of the new dawn.

The Congolese people hope that their centuries-old dream of peace, democracy, human rights and prosperity will no longer be deferred. They set great store by the day when they will have the possibility freely to elect the first legitimate government of the DRC after the government led by Patrice Lumumba.

They are convinced that the government they will elect, which will necessarily be accountable to them, will respect their aspirations for peace, government by the people, national unity and a better life. Because of the suffering they and their forebears have endured, and the expectation generated by the commencement of the transitional period, they are impatient for the moment to arrive when, for the second time in 500 years, they will have a government of their choice.

On previous occasions when we have visited Kinshasa, we have seen people along the streets of this enormous African city express this hope by holding up placards reading – “Elections June 30 2005”. There is no doubt that this reflected the wish of millions of Congolese.

However, everybody also knew that it would not be easy to realise this goal within the two-year period prescribed in the Global and Inclusive Agreement and the Transitional Constitution. This is because of the many difficult tasks that would have to be accomplished both to create the conditions for the elections to take place and to ensure that their outcome truly reflects the will of the Congolese people.

Among other things, a new Constitution had first to be approved by referendum. New Congolese security forces had to be created, leading to the dissolution of the various armed formations that had engaged one another in war. This includes the Rwandan armed group that had committed genocide in Rwanda in 1994 and then fled to the then Zaire.

The state administration had to be extended to all parts of the DRC, to reunite the country and create the conditions for all political parties freely to campaign everywhere. The voters had to be registered for both the referendum and the elections, bearing in mind that there have been no elections for 45 years, the state administration had collapsed during the Mobutu years, as had the communication infrastructure, making it difficult to reach all parts of the country.

There is now movement on all these matters. As we have said, parliament has adopted the new Constitution and will soon approve the legislation enabling the referendum to take place. New integrated military brigades and police units are being established. The Rwandan armed groups have agreed to disband and have accepted that they should be repatriated to Rwanda.

Governors and administrators have been deployed by the Transitional Government in all the provinces and localities, uniting the country under one administration. The process of registering voters will begin next month. The church and civil society organisations have already begun the work of voter education.

In addition to the units of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) deployed as part of the UN troops, others of our compatriots are working with the Transitional Government of the DRC and other countries, contributing to the advances being made in the various areas we have indicated. We will continue this important engagement as part of our internationalist duty to help achieve Africa’s renewal.

During our visit to the DRC, we had the opportunity to interact with almost all the leaders representing the political formations involved in the transitional institutions, as well as the church, organisations of civil society and the organised women of the Congo. We were very inspired by the resolve communicated by these leaders to ensure that their country continues to advance towards the elections in conditions of peace and stability, respecting the commitments they made as reflected in the Global and Inclusive Agreement and the Transitional Constitution.

We were similarly inspired that the struggles of the Congolese women had resulted in the great victory that the final Constitution includes a provision requiring that gender parity should be achieved in the composition of the organs of state. To the best of our knowledge this pioneering giant step forward is not reflected in any other Constitution anywhere in the world, including our own. It constitutes an important indication of the capacity of the Congolese people to occupy the front ranks in the process of the progressive transformation of human society.

Effectively to do so, the DRC will first have to complete its transition in the conditions of peace and stability to which the leaders and the masses of the Congolese people are committed. We trust that the progress that has been made under difficult conditions and the irreversible advance towards the elections, will inspire the Congolese people to unite in truly joyful and peaceful celebrations of the 45th Anniversary of Independence, determined to live up to the vision for the DRC that inspired Patrice Lumumba – forward ever, backward never!

May Day Part III

Last week we concluded Part II of this extended May Day Letter with the words: “The question all our social partners will have to answer honestly is what they have to do individually and together that will demonstrate that the workers were right to celebrate Workers’ Day in a spirit of hope and confidence.”

This is particularly relevant given what these social partners undertook at the 2003 Growth and Development Summit (GDS). The Agreement adopted by the Summit said:

“The constituencies of Nedlac – government, business, labour and the community – reaffirm their commitment to social dialogue and working together to address the economic and development challenges our country faces. The constituencies commit themselves to a common vision for promoting rising levels of growth, investment, job creation and people-centred development.”

In its Declaration, the recent 22-23 April Ekurhuleni Summit Meeting of our Alliance, involving the ANC, the SACP, COSATU and SANCO, correctly recalled the GDS Agreement. In this regard it said:

“One of the major achievements flowing out of our 2002 Alliance Summit was the convening of the Growth and Development Summit (GDS) in June 2003. Over the past two days we have devoted considerable time to reviewing the resolutions of the GDS, and assessing the degree to which there has been effective implementation. Important progress has been made, but our Summit agreed that we have, as an Alliance working together with our government, not sufficiently mobilised our energies and resources to ensure that there is indeed dynamic implementation of the GDS resolutions.”

In this regard, the Alliance Summit Meeting drew particular attention to the need to “put South Africa onto a sustainable growth and development path that creates and protects jobs and that ensures decent work and livelihoods for all. However, in the face of the current wave of job losses, we cannot look to medium and longer-term measures alone. Urgent intervention is required, and as an Alliance we are determined to ensure that decisive steps are taken in the short-term.”

In Part II of our May Day Letter, we argued that we are not faced with a situation similar to the socio-economic crisis that confronted the Irish people in 1987, leading to the creation of the particular form of social partnership that elaborated and implemented the Irish Programme for National Recovery.

However, we still supported the implementation of the social partnership agreed at the GDS, whose functioning would be determined by our specific national conditions. For this reason, we argued that for our social partners to determine what they had to do individually and collectively, they had to share a common understanding of the specific challenges they and our country face.

Given its importance, one of these must surely be the issue of job creation and retention. Unfortunately, it is difficult to get an accurate picture of the job situation in the country.

This is not to question the fact that we have a high unemployment rate. Precisely because of this, it is necessary that our collective response should be correctly focused, based on the real situation rather than perceptions.

To reflect however briefly on this matter, let us start by quoting from the ILO-sponsored 2002 study, “The post-apartheid South African Labour Market: a Status Report”, prepared by Laura Poswell. She wrote:

“In the period from 1995 to 1999, South Africa experienced increases in both the demand for, and the supply of labour. The growth in supply, however, outstripped the growth in demand, which has led to an ever worsening employment gap...

“It is extremely important to note that even though unemployment has increased, so have the number of jobs the economy has created. The country did not actually experience the much postulated ‘jobless growth’ from 1995 to 1999. Rather, aggregate employment increased by approximately 12%...

“It is the increases in the economically active population that are largely driving the rising unemployment...(representing) the combination of a rapidly growing labour force and insufficient capacity for labour absorption translates into rising unemployment for all race groups...”

More recently, a study conducted by the economist Mike Schussler said, as reported by “Creamer Media” that, “The number of jobs in the formal economy grew by one percent in 2002, about two percent in 2003 and then 2,7% last year – total of 345 000 jobs over 3 years.” Commenting on the 2004 figure, the publication said this “(defies) the widely held view that jobs are being shed at an alarming rate because strength in the rand currency has been eroding exports.”

These studies suggest that for at least a decade now, our economy has both shed and created jobs, with the number of jobs created exceeding jobs lost through retrenchment. However, despite the fact that we have not experienced “jobless growth”, unemployment has increased because of poor labour absorption.

In her study, Ms Poswell raises the very important question about what is meant by the rate of unemployment. In this context she says we should pay attention to such categories in labour market economics as “the labour force, or economically active population (EAP)”, as well as the “narrow definition” and the “broad definition” of unemployment.

Our labour market statistics are collected and published by our national statutory statistics authority, Stats SA. In its September 2003 edition, the Department of Labour “Labour Market Review” (LMR) says:

“Stats SA uses the strict (ILO) definition of unemployment as its official definition (of unemployment). Accordingly, the unemployed are those people within the economically active population (EAP) who:

(a) did not work during the seven days prior to the interview (carried out by Stats SA); (b) want to work and are available to start work within a week of the interview; and, (c) have taken active steps to look for work or to start some form of self-employment in the four weeks prior to the interview.

“In the alternative, expanded definition of unemployment, criterion (c) is dropped.”

(NB: the above is consistent with international practice concerning the definition of “unemployment”.)

Citing Stats SA figures prepared on this basis, LMR said that 4,400,000 people were unemployed in March 2004. According to Stats SA, these were people who were actively looking for jobs or trying to create work for themselves. On this basis, Stats SA said our official (narrow definition) unemployment rate in March 2004 was 26.9%.

Given the structure of our society and our labour market, this means that in March 2004 there were at least 4 million South Africans walking about in our villages, our towns and cities “actively looking for work”. This is such a large number of people that nobody could possibly have missed the millions that would be in the streets and village paths “actively looking for work” in all likely places of employment.

It therefore seems quite unlikely that the Stats SA figure is correct, if indeed it used the standard international ILO definition to determine the unemployment rate. If this is the case, this means that it becomes very difficult to assess ourselves relative to other countries, which might use the ILO definition more strictly.

For instance, unemployment in Brazil in March this year is given as standing at 10.8%. The highest point it reached in the last decade, at about 15%, was around January 2000. If we take India, the unemployment rate in 2002 was given as 8.8% and 9.1% for 2003.

The latest unemployment figure we could find for Nigeria was for 1988, when unemployment was said to stand at 7.3%. The unemployment rate for the Philippines in April 2004 was said to be 13.7%.

Even a rudimentary understanding of the political economy of these sister countries would suggest that it is hardly likely that the difference between their unemployment rates and ours could be as large as the Stats SA figures suggest.

The central matter at issue in this regard is that if in fact such a difference exists, we would then have to undertake actions to address unemployment, fundamentally different from virtually any other country in the world. We would have to treat South Africa as a truly unique and exceptional case, globally.

Among other things, this might suggest that we should undertake a radical review of our economic policies. This emphasises the point that we have to ensure that we obtain and act on a factually accurate picture of our unemployment challenges.

To indicate the importance of a proper understanding of the challenge we face, we will now cite some figures relating to the United States. The critical matter to bear in mind in this regard is that the US unemployment rate is stated as being around a relatively low 5%, compared to our very high 27%.

But in her March 2000 paper entitled “The Missing Entitlement and the Lost Entitlement”, US Professor Gertrude Schaffner Goldberg writes:

“In 1999, when the official unemployment rate averaged 4.2 percent, there were, in addition to the 5.9 million persons counted as unemployed, 3.4 million involuntary part-time workers, 4.2 million non-job seekers who wanted a job, and approximately 16.7 million full-time, year-round workers earning less the poverty level of a family of four – a total of 30.2 million unemployed or underemployed. In 1998, when the national unemployment rate was 4.5 percent, 74 cities and 300 counties had rates of 9 percent or higher. And according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, one in six U.S. cities has chronically high unemployment rates despite the general decline in unemployment.”

Further to illustrate the need to have a proper grasp of the challenge we face, let us reflect briefly on the category in employment statistics characterised as “labour force participation”. The US Bureau of Labour explains this as “the proportion of the civilian non-institutional population 16 years of age and older (the ‘economically active population’) either at work or actively seeking work”.

On the basis of this definition, labour force participation in the US in October 2004 was 65%. According to Stats SA, the figure for South Africa in September 2004 was 53%.

In addition to the startling information presented by Professor Goldberg, this means that whereas the official unemployment rate in the US is about 5%, 35% of the economically active population, excluding those in the armed forces and prison, is not employed and is not actively looking for work.

In our case, the figures are 27% and 47% respectively. This means that, when we compare the US and South Africa, whereas the difference in the unemployment rate is 22%, the difference in labour force participation is the much smaller figure of 12%. As with the comparative figures relating to other developing countries, obviously this requires explanation.

Yet another matter that confounds our understanding of the labour market is the growth of the practice of casualisation and the redefinition of workers as independent contractors. Many of these workers enter our system of national statistics as belonging among those who are unemployed.

As long ago as 1998, the South African Institute of Race Relations reported that “the Confederation of Employers of Southern Africa...estimates that it has assisted 3,000 firms to convert 150,000 employees into independent contractors, and says that many employers have shown a keen interest in doing this in the future.”

A 1995 ILO report on our labour market had said “external labour flexibility has been growing, in that many firms were resorting to temporary labour or casual labour and were tending more to make use of contract labour, or were subcontracting employment...Over 82% of firms (it surveyed) used temporary workers, and over 45% used contract labour.”

Let us cite two examples in this regard, relating to the retail and wine industries.

Commenting on the retail sector, Bridget Kenny has written: “My own research suggests a rate in sampled stores of approximately 65% casual and subcontracted labour (excluding the subcontracting of non-core activities like cleaning and security) compared to 35% permanent employment. This figure is close to rates of casualisation in other companies. For instance, Woolworths has been reported to have 70% casual workers, and research from the Western Cape shows for Pick n’ Pay, a rate of 60% casuals and part-timers. (Clarke, 2000)”

With regard to the Western Cape vineyards, Cathy van Zyl has written that, “many have significantly reduced the number of workers they employ directly and sub-contract major vineyard tasks because this is easier than complying with all the legislation...The contractors – often abuse both the farmers and the labourers. Many a vineyard has been compromised when the team has not had the experience the contractor promised, and labourers often have to hand over a large percentage of their daily wage just to get a place on the vineyard work-team.”

Apart from the fact that this process of casualisation enables employers to pay the workers low wages and erode their rights, it is relevant to the issue we are discussing of gaining a proper understanding of the state of our labour market, as many of these workers would not appear in our employment statistics. In this regard, Bridget Kenny has said, “unfortunately subcontracted labour is not accounted for in retail industry employment statistics, and little research has been conducted on it.”

More work also needs to be done to get a more accurate picture of the size of the so-called “grey economy” and the numbers of people employed in this sector. This economy is made up of enterprises that are not registered. As a consequence of this, it is not easy to gather the necessary statistical information about these businesses.

To give an indication of the importance of this challenge, we know, for instance, that not so long ago, goods produced by one of our companies amounting to about R6 billion a year were bought and sold by unlicensed traders, some of whom are millionaires. Yet these people would appear in our national statistics as unemployed.

In our May Day Letter in ANC TODAY Vol 5 No 18, we pointed to the fact that workers throughout the world used May Day to highlight the common problems they face globally. We made the assertion that it seemed that it was unlikely that the workers of the world would unite in action to address these common challenges.

We said that it seemed obvious that the workers would seek solutions to these problems within their countries, taking into account their specific conditions. In this context, as an example of such national action, we cited the example of the social partnership formed in Ireland in 1987, which included the Irish Trade Union Congress.

We have subsequently argued that our own workers have sought their own national solution partly through the social partnership that convened and participated in the Growth and Development Summit (GDS). In the period since it took place, our organised workers have continued to reiterate their commitment to the social partnership that was expressed through the GDS.

Supporting this, we have argued that for them to be able to act together effectively, these social partners must, among other things, move from a common understanding of the challenges they face together. Undoubtedly, one of these is the important challenge of unemployment, a matter raised by the workers of all countries during the May Day celebrations.

Hopefully what we have said in this last Part of our May Day Letter, concerning the issue of jobs, will serve as sufficient illustration demonstrating why this common understanding is critically important.

Some employers believe that they will best serve their interests by projecting our economy as one that is mainly characterised by enormous job losses. They believe that in this way, they will oblige our government to roll back the rights won by our workers since the victory of the democratic revolution in 1994. They argue that to respond to the challenge of unemployment, we have no choice but to ensure maximum “labour market flexibility”.

At the same time, some trade unions believe that they will best serve their interests by projecting our economy as one that is mainly characterised by enormous job losses. They believe that in this way they will secure the best conditions for the protection of the jobs of their members, including the threat posed to these jobs by the competing interests of the unemployed, who are ready to take the jobs of those who are employed.

Indeed high unemployment levels constitute a threat to employed workers. Such high levels of unemployment and the attendant poverty also constitute a threat to the property owners. These cannot afford a rebellion of the marginalised against a system that guarantees the property owners their property rights and comfortable lives, while condemning the excluded millions to lives of misery.

Equally, the democratic state has a direct and immediate interest to ensure that because they are denied access to a better life, the excluded do not repudiate and rise up against the democratic order, believing that it is incapable of serving their interests.

Our social partners have a shared interest to defeat the related scourges of unemployment and poverty. Properly to respond to this common challenge, they will have to learn how to achieve the correct balance between their partisan and collective interests. It is only within this context that we would be able to say that the workers of our country were justified to celebrate May Day in a spirit of hope and confidence.

Unity and diversity / Part 1

Overview of the ANC's experience

During the ninety-three years of its existence the ANC has demonstrated the capacity to remain relevant despite sweeping changes in South Africa, Africa and the rest of the world. Ossification, complacency and rigidity can overtake even the wisest of political movements. In 2005, not only is the ANC relevant, it has demonstrated in three successive general elections that it enjoys the support and confidence of the overwhelming majority of South Africans.

Yet in South Africa and in other parts of the world, movements and parties of about the same age as the ANC, have collapsed, become irrelevant or are struggling to stay alive. What has given the ANC this capacity to survive and sustain its relevance?

The growth, development and maturation of a political formation is not a linear process. A delicate balance that sustains continuity but which nonetheless offers the political space for new initiatives and for the emergence of novel ideas is vitally necessary to keep it alive.

An examination of how the ANC has maintained that delicate balance in the past should form the basis for a discussion on how it should handle the inevitable tensions that accompany development and growth in the present. Part one of this article looks at the ANC’s experience. Part two, to be published next week, looks at some of the current challenges.

The ANC bears the distinction of being among the oldest national liberation movements in the world. It was the pioneer movement in sub-Saharan Africa from which a host of sister movements in Southern and East Africa drew direct inspiration. Founded in 1912 as a multi-class movement primarily for the african people, at first membership was restricted to men only, but in time women were brought into full membership.

Towards the end of that decade, the Industrial and Commercial Workers Union (ICU) was formed, becoming the most active and popular organisation in urban and rural areas during the 1920s and producing a crop of militant african, coloured and indian working class leaders.

Though they emerged independently of each other, the national movement and the black working class movement intersected, were intermeshed and fed off each other at numerous points. Members of the ICU were invariably members and leaders of the ANC, as working class ANC members were also enrolled in the ICU.

Owing to the relative numerical weight of the working class and other working people among the oppressed, there was an ongoing mutual cross fertilisation between the two movements. Tactics learnt and employed in workers’ struggles informed the strategy of the ANC; skills acquired and employed in the national movement found application in workers’ struggles. The movement borrowed freely from others throughout the world, adapting their methods to the South african situation where appropriate.

Unity of purpose

For maximum effect, any political movement relies on the collective action of its adherents. Political programmes and the programme of action by which to pursue them are the devices by which political adherents commit themselves to common action.

The collective commitment made by the adherents of a movement is further reinforced by agreed mechanisms of mutual discipline – the whips in a parliamentary party play this role – which entails submission of the individual member to the collective in all matters affecting the collective good. The unity of the movement thus involves a social contract between the individual member and the collective in terms of which the individual member surrenders a measure of personal sovereignty to pursue a common purpose, in return for which the individual is reciprocated by the support of the collective to pursue an individual objective that is unattainable except through collective action.

Unity is an organisational value upheld and pursued by all political movements because it enhances the effectiveness of collective action.

But, political collectives are made up of diverse individual members, who have come together to pool their energies in pursuit of shared objectives. The more elastic the breadth of the collective and the greater the depth of its potential appeal, the greater the prospect of tensions and conflicts among its adherents. Coherent and effective action therefore require a leadership to exercise vigilance not to allow potential and actual tensions to jeopardise it.

Yet, a mechanical uniformity holds out the threat of stifling, undermining and repressing the creative thinking and innovation so necessary for growth and adaptation to ever-changing situations and environments.

Diverse constituencies

Though defined by law and practice as a conquered and colonised people, black South Africans were and remain highly differentiated communities. Such diversity derives from the origins of its many components, the experience and lived existence of its members, and the highly differentiated social and economic environment it has to work and live in.

The challenge faced by the political leadership was devising strategies and tactics that could result in unity of purpose and collective action, despite the diversity of the communities to be mobilised. To achieve this, they emphasised the shared political status of blacks as colonised people.

Unity of purpose is thus not a given nor is it constant. It is the outcome of ongoing political and ideological struggles through which the oppressed learn its virtue from their own experience. But because the terrain on which the struggle unfolds is unstable and continuously shifting, strategy, and especially tactics, have to be kept under constant review.

In the course of its history, the strategy of the ANC sought to maximise the unity of the african people in the first instance, then create wider alliances with the movements of the other oppressed communities, while stimulating opposition to the white minority regime among whites.

The challenge of maintaining unity under these circumstances was illustrated during the period beginning in 1927 with the election of Josiah T Gumede as ANC president. Seeking to rejuvenate the ANC, Gumede pursued the strategy of an ANC alliance with the Communist Party, the trade unions and progressive peasant organisations to create a mass movement striving for an end to colonial domination. Radical democratic politics, including socialist ideas, came into the ANC through the alliance Gumede tried to build.

However, in 1930, Gumede was voted out of office. In a well-organised conservative backlash, people opposed to radical politics in principle had him ousted. Under the more cautious leadership of Pixley ka Seme the ANC withdrew into itself. Destructive witch-hunts ensued to rid the movement of radicals, communists and others perceived to be such. Later that decade, in Natal, John Dube broke with the national body to form a regional ANC, iANC yase Natal. Division led to decline leaving the ANC ill-prepared for the offensive of the white minority government cobbled together by Hertzog and Smuts in 1935.

By contrast, the ANC evolved and grew significantly during the 1950s because it was consistently politically engaged. It had interacted with and learnt from a host of other political formations in South Africa and beyond its borders. In the process it had borrowed freely and adapted to its own purposes the tactics of the movement for Indian independence. From the workers movement it had learnt how to organise strikes. It had forged alliances with like-minded bodies of coloureds, indians and whites, besides working in loose coalitions with bodies of whites who were critical of the policies of apartheid.

Giving leadership to so broad a movement involved, among other things, managing the internal debates that animated the movement. As in all political movements, debate at a certain point has to make way for action. The tradition the ANC evolved through practice, is that while debate and ongoing discussion is the life-blood of the movement, differences of opinion should not undermine the movement's capacity for collective action. This is achieved by the requirement that a minority viewpoint submits to the majority, though the minority may reserve the right to revisit these differences within the structures of the movement.

During the 1950s caucuses of like-minded comrades and lobbies for specific policy directions were not uncommon. Provided these did not crystalise into factions, they were allowed. The Africanists were one of the most vocal lobbies, networked across the country. When the Africanist lobby, led by Potlako Leballo, broke movement discipline by organising against a strike called by the movement in 1958, Leballo and Josiah Madzunya were suspended from the ANC. The following year, the majority of their supporters left the ANC voluntarily to establish the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC).

Challenges of underground and exile

After the Rivonia arrests of 1963 and the mass repression inside South Africa, the corps of ANC leaders outside the country was compelled by circumstances to assume leadership of the movement inside and outside South Africa. Operating for almost 30 years from external headquarters, the ANC's leading bodies were required to coordinate the operations of structures spread across the globe. In addition to its own membership and supporters, the ANC maintained a multi-faceted relationship with a host of other bodies – other liberation movements, various political parties, governments and solidarity movements.

It was by marshalling all these forces, working in closer and more effective coordination, that the movement finally brought the apartheid regime to the negotiating table. The movement survived the most determined repression, including illegalisation, the execution of its members, the imprisonment of its most gifted leaders, the assassination of its cadres, and the "informal repression" of its supporters through the agency of mercenaries and counter-revolutionary vigilantes.

The ANC had evolved over time from a movement that hoped to extend the few rights that some blacks enjoyed under British colonialism into one that sought to overthrow the entire system of minority rule. Because it was involved in a dynamic, ever-changing situation, the movement itself constantly had to change. The very dynamism of the situation required the ANC to discover the means of maintaining continuity while always being open to change. The growth and evolution of the movement entailed the ANC gathering around itself allies, partners, associates and supporters.

But the alliances the movement crafted were not all of the same character. Some were by nature short-lived; some were enduring; some were tactical; others were strategic. Its association with Marxists, especially after 1928, led to the absorption of Marxist analysis alongside the Christian ethical teachings that had motivated most of its founders and the radical nationalism of the ANC Youth League. The movement consequently evolved as a hybrid that combined a number of intellectual traditions under its roof.

Operating in an ever-changing environment, the movement had to require tactical resilience while maintaining a consistent strategic focus. These two qualities gave the ANC a capacity to accommodate diversity within its ranks and among its supporters while nurturing the unity of purpose and action at decisive moments. Its evolution was not linear but characterised by periods of growth and advance, counter-pointed by others of retreat and decline. Repression at times threatened to destroy it but its inner strength enabled it to recover from these blows and move forward.

** This is an edited extract from a discussion document prepared for the ANC National General Council (NGC) being held in Tshwane from 29 June to 3 July. These documents are currently being distributed to ANC branches for discussion, and are available on the ANC website at: www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/ngcouncils/2005/index.html.

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