By Lindinto Hlekani alias Monde Keke
What we have is ours. It is our own. But it does not belong to us. It belongs to our forbearers and the generations and generations to come.
I have always tried to make my voice heard when and where I thought my contribution would add value and thus contribute to a much-needed positive outcome. I have learnt, at times painfully, that it is not always important to win the argument. Sometimes, I have come to appreciate, it is not unwise to retreat exactly when you thought you were on the verge of grabbing what you always wanted. Wisdom's invaluable and characteristic ingredient is time. Time has afforded us what we have, and which at times we regard as obvious and unimportant. To revolutionaries time is priceless.
Before 1994 the struggling people of South Africa agreed that there would be a period of transition where the process of the positive destruction of apartheid and the building of the new South Africa would commence. South Africans, supported by the peoples of the world, set themselves the mammoth task of building a democratic, non-racial, non-sexist society.
In building a new society South Africans needed to look no further, because the same tools used to destroy Apartheid bore the seeds of transformation. These tools were to be redesigned to suite the new challenges of building a new society. There was not going to be any indentured labour or brigades of volunteers from outside South Africa that were to be organised to help build a new South Africa. As they brought about the demise of Apartheid, South Africans are expected to bring about a new society. As I intimated, not only is there building material, there is also a work force consisting of bricklayers, land surveyors, civil engineers, architects, and so on.
Why, all of a sudden, does there seem to be disagreement as to what to build, how to go about building it and who should overseer the whole building process?
Perhaps, to try and give answers to these questions it might be appropriate to reflect on the few years preceding the seizure of political power on the 27th April, 1994.
I alluded to the fact that before 1994 the embittered but struggling people of South Africa unanimously agreed not only to destroy Apartheid, but to also in its ashes build a democratic, non-racial and non-sexist society.
This is a society that would give a true meaning to the values of democracy, non-racialism and non-sexism founded on the centuries-old principle of ubuntu. The mandate to build such a society has been given to the ANC in the elections.
Unity
Founded on the dire necessity to build unity, the ANC has continued to unite not only the African people in the South African society, it has gone further to unite the whole South African population whilst at the same time appreciating and valuing their diversity. Their diversity as ethnic groups or national groups helps enrich their unity as the South African nation.
Before the defeat of Apartheid the ANC had gone further and much further to unite the peoples of Southern Africa (Hare Declaration) of Africa (Kuala Lumpur), and the World (UN Declaration) in facilitating the downfall of Apartheid and the building of a new society. Unity therefore is what helped us defeat Apartheid and, no doubt, it is what will help South Africans build a new society. It is a united South Africa that will help build a united African Union and ensure a successfully NEPAD.
What ensured our victory, among other most important things, was the existence of united formations sharing a uniform vision.
Our united formations
These are the formations that I referred to as our tools of struggle. We had the churches, sports bodies, student organisations, cultural workers, intellectuals, etc. all brought together by the deafening desire to unshackle our society. Leading these mass formations was the working class. The South African working class went through a hazardous journey of firstly, winning 'legal' recognition as unions (Wiehan Commission) and of further struggling to unite in a much stronger COSATU and NACTU. The struggle for the unity of the working class happened at the same time as the struggle from general workers unions to ONE INDUSTRY ONE UNION formations.
Perhaps it might be important to note that the formation of COSATU as a federation was a joint responsibility of the Alliance, which then was comprising of SACTU, SACP and the ANC. This is the same Alliance that is in power today. I sometimes think that to make mention of these historical facts is not just to know history for the sake of it. The reason that we study or know history is because we need to learn from it. By knowing our history we sometimes spare ourselves committing mistakes that were done before or re-entering into discussions that were undertaken before. We need not re-invent the wheel.
The Alliance therefore cooperated in jointly forming COSATU, as an instrument of the working class. The Alliance partners understood too well that even though under capitalism the main motive force behind revolutionary change in society is the working class, but because the struggle in South Africa was to liberate the black people and mainly the African people it had to be led by the African National Congress. By the time of the attainment of our political power and even today, the ideals of the ANC continue to be shared by non-communists and communists alike.
Like the other formations in our society then and now, the working class is expected to occupy its historical and rightful role in building a new society. It was the understanding then and it is the understanding now that in building a democratic, non-racial and non-sexist South Africa the working class is paving the way for a socialist society which society is its ultimate vision as a class. The vision of the people of SA as it exists now is no different from that of the working class except to say the vision we all have forms part of a broader vision of the working class.
Candidly speaking, the non-capitalist path we are following is neither anti-capitalist nor anti-communist. It is a National Democratic Revolution. National democracy is different from bourgeois democracy in that the form is different and the content is much richer as is the case in pure bourgeois democracies.
I would boldly say it is a path more similar to what we have in the Scandinavian countries. I am making such a bold statement because, more often than not, I am tempted to conclude that some of us who claim to represent the working class suffer from impatience. If we are not impatient we deliberately ignore the dialectical connection between our transition as it unfolds now and the ultimate goal of the working class.
Whatever changes we are effecting now should be changes that must help better and enhance the standard a living of all South Africans regardless of status or position in society. Most importantly, we should be driven by the desire to throw away all that reminds our people of their bitter past, especially poverty, joblessness and disease.
On the present discourse
What is presently absent in the ongoing discourse, and glaringly so, is our common desire to succeed as a country as we succeeded as a people in defeating Apartheid. It would seem to me that some of us have suddenly decided to put emphasis on individuality rather than placing emphasis on our commonality and communality. Honestly, there seems to be a growing number of people who are only interested in who is saying what rather than what is being said. If we are so interested in who is saying what, shouldn't it be because we are in search of wisdom.
Much as I believe in the equality of comrades, I also believe that the contribution of comrades in the struggle can never be the same. Some of the stalwarts can now and again help us find our way when we think we have lost our topographical charts.
Until that February day in 1990 no one, for certain, would predetermine that on that day F.W. De Klerk would unban political organisations. Even De Klerk himself would not have known that one day he would be the one who would make such an important announcement. Much as we do not know, for certain, what tomorrow will bring we nonetheless have the ability to plan for our tomorrow. That ability emanates from the fact that our cognitive abilities help us know our present, living the present whilst we prepare for the future. It is our combined future as citizens of South Africa that will determine the future of our country.
There can therefore be no stipulated time frames as to when we can say the transition is over. Time will tell when we look at the situation of South Africans and say we have managed to fight poverty, joblessness, disease, etc.
From what we can learn from the history of our struggle itself was the need for the Alliance in destroying Apartheid. That need is much greater now that we have to build the new as well as safeguard what we have won.
Let us once again sing in unison:
Comrades fighting all together
With courage, valour never ending.
We fight not for glory nor distinction
Our goal is our liberty.
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