The ANC needs to develop an environment within the movement, within society and on the continent that stimulates and encourages the involvement of intellectuals in mapping the way forward, writes Mandla Nkomfe.
The debate on the place and role of intellectuals in our democratic transformation has been in the public discourse in recent years.
Intellectuals have played a pivotal role in the struggle for freedom and are continuing to shape ideas in the organisation and in society.
Intellectuals play an important role in helping to articulate and couch the terms of our struggle to achieve a broader appeal. For instance, the fact that our struggle was seen in the context of human rights helped to mobilise a wider support for our cause. Achieving this required people who could remove themselves from the immediate concerns and imagine a broader goal of freedom. Thus is the role of intellectuals is in bringing about social change.
Intellectuals help to analyse the events, processes and implications of each stage or phase of our struggle. Each phase of our struggle has required strong men and women who had clarity of thought and vision. This includes people who could read and interpret the development of the productive forces and subjective factors. The incorrect reading of these factors could make a person irrelevant and they could be left behind by historical developments.
Intellectuals invented ideas that went beyond the immediate concerns of the masses. While the need to respond to objective realities was important, the role of intellectuals was that of assisting the nation to look at ideas beyond the pressing issues of the present.
In South Africa's past, the emergence of newspapers like Imvo Zabantsundu and Ilanga lase Natal, the printing of the Bible and religious songs by missionary printing houses, and development of the productive forces of the economy helped the intellectuals of the time - like WB Rubusana, John Langalibelele Dube, Sol Plaatje, Charlotte Maxeke, Sefako Makgatho and JT Gumede - to conceive of the struggle not only in regional but in national terms.
For instance, intellectuals conceived the idea of the nation as distinct from tribal or ethnic responses to colonialism. This allowed the emerging national liberation movement to embrace the notion of a common society and thus the need for a united front to advance the struggle. This bold assertion militated against the objective reality of the tribal and ethnic space. It forced people to think differently of themselves and more as South Africans. In this sense they fitted into Benedict Anderson's notion of imagined communities.
Public Intellectuals
Public intellectuals have always been defined by their inclination to speak truth to power and thus seek to humanise it. In this category are people who observe society's functioning at all levels - in community, political, economic and spiritual matters. In days gone by, praise poets would be regarded as public intellectuals. Writers, musicians, lecturers and artists are arguably playing a role of public intellectuals. They observe and interpret reality as they see it, irrespective of consequences. Their role is always to challenge the abuse of power and excesses of the powerful. In many ways they are seen to be standing for universal values of humanity.
Even if the driving forces are the ideals mentioned above, they do take sides with regard to oppression, economic injustice, negative impact of globalisation, etc. Public intellectuals see themselves as committed to the cause but not obligated to its agency, which could be political parties or government. They operate within the realm of human rights and justice.
To do this, they utilise their skills of speaking and writing to denounce injustice. These public intellectuals are said to have no affiliation to politics (in specific terms) or political parties. They function and trade their skills in the public sphere.
The intellectual stratum performs important functions in society, such as shaping public opinion and investigating social, political, economic and philosophical questions. To do this requires that intellectuals should be skilled of engagement and inquiry. This means that a lot of resources are put in place within our organisation and in universities to raise people to the level of intellectual engagement.
In the context of South Africa, intellectuals have come from various backgrounds. The missionary colleges, universities, trade union schools of the 1940s and 50s, the night schools of the Communist Party of South Africa, the Party Schools of the USSR, Cuba and German Democratic Republic, political education on Robben Island and the political education classes of the mass democratic movement of the 1980s have all combined to create organic and public intellectuals. They have empowered a number of people with the necessary tools of analysis to explain and chart the way forward.
Every epoch has its own organic intellectuals. Their purpose is always to work for the mode of production. The ANC is a collective organic intellectual. It must articulate vision, strategy and tactics and the new civilisation of our times. This conception can move beyond the ANC to embrace most people in society to play the role of organic intellectuals. These should include teachers, academics, preachers and civil society formations.
The persecution of intellectuals
The degeneration of progressive struggles the world over started when those at the helm of state power used their might to persecute intellectuals.
The examples of persecution can be found all over - Africa after independence, Pol Pot in Kampuchea (1975-1979), the Cultural Revolution in China (1965-1975), Chile (1973) and the systematic killings of communists in Indonesia (1975). In the early days of the socialist revolution in the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin began a systematic attack on intellectuals such as Leon Trotsky and Nikolai Bukharin.
This persecution started inside political parties and movements and broadened into wider society. Some areas where intellectual persecution occurred include:
* Africa: The decolonialisation period was followed by a period of relative peace and tolerance of opposing views and a respect of democratic values.
The rise of dictatorships in places like Nigeria, Uganda, Zaire and the Sudan and authoritarian regimes in places like Kenya, Malawi began a process of intellectual persecution. In the last 40 years many African scholars have left the continent. This has effectively set the continent back in terms of academic, economic and cultural input. Makerere University in Uganda used to be the hub of intellectual engagement for academics and politicians from across the world. The rise of Idi Amin put an end to this vibrant community.
Its able and gifted professors (including Ali A Mazrui) were forced to leave the country. In Kenya, Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Ngugi wa Mathiri and others were also pushed out of the country. The successive military dictatorships in Nigeria made it impossible for intellectuals to do their work and consequently the universities were neglected and began a long process of decline.
* China: Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution was systematically aimed at the intelligentsia. Its central theme was a campaign against "bourgeois values".
This programme was launched after the failure of Mao's Great Leap Forward campaign. Intellectual giants such as Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping were the first victims of the Cultural Revolution.
Liu Shaoqi died in prison in 1969 and Deng Xiaoping was banished to the countryside. Young people were recruited into the Red Guards to sustain and implement this programme. They were a law unto themselves. Intellectuals of different sorts were identified, criticised and isolated. This included teachers, university lecturers, and other professionals. Intellectuals were subjected to public criticism and physical abuse Most intellectuals were sent to the countryside for so-called rehabilitation. Part of the rehabilitation was doing hard labour in the rural areas. The 11th Party Congress in 1977, officially put an end to the cultural revolution. The Gang of Four; (who spearheaded the campaign) was arrested. Deng Xiaoping and others were brought back to lead the Party and thus started the modernisation project.
* Kampuchea: In 1975, the Communist Party of Cambodia (Khmer Rouge) overthrew the Cambodian government. The party started a campaign of massive evacuation of people from urban areas into the countryside. They closed schools and factories in the cities. People were forced to work in communal farms. Intellectuals and other professional strata were killed under the guise that they had connections with the previous government and foreign powers. Intellectuals were not the only targets of Pol Pot. Others included religious communities such as Christians, Muslims and Buddhist Monks. It is estimated that some 3.3 million people were killed in the process. In 1978, the Vietnamese troops invaded Kampuchea and defeated the Khmer Rouge in 1979. A new regime was put in place with the assistance of the Socialist Government of Vietnam.
The persecution of intellectuals has had negative consequences for the political, economic, spiritual and societal development of the African continent. For four decades, the continent has experienced a brain drain due to the political, administrative and academic harassment of intellectuals.
The brain drain continues due to factors such as the declining quality of education in most countries, social unrest, political conflicts and war.
Other contributing factors include lack of research and other facilities, inadequacy of research funds, and lack of professional equipment and tools.
The shortage and lack of skills in Africa is directly related to the persecution of intellectuals, compounding the effects of colonialism. The impact of the brain drain means that most universities are deprived of the necessary attention such as research funding and experienced professors. Most departments of African Studies are located outside the continent.
Most universities are forced to offer courses that are sub-standard and not relevant to the development of the continent because of the lack of capable teachers.
Affirming and Promoting the role of intellectuals in the movement The idea of promoting intellectualism and the appreciation of ideas within the ANC-led liberation movement is critical for the survival of the organisation. The use of the anticipated ANC Policy Institute to establish linkages with society and public intellectuals, and the use of the Political School to ensure that members of the organisation benefit from this discourse (within the ambit of the ANC's objectives) will go some way in promoting intellectual work within its ranks and attracting the intelligentsia in general.
Organic intellectuals are to be found in the broader liberation movement.
They have been selected, educated and nurtured by the ANC-led liberation movement. They come from a variety of backgrounds. Some come from institutions of higher learning while others were produced by the movement's programme of political education and ideological training. In the course of events they became the articulators of the ANC's vision and worldview.
Intellectuals of the national liberation movement have not restricted themselves to just helping to analyse and reveal emerging trends and future destinations, but were direct combatants in the freedom struggle. Comrades David Rabkin, Jack Simons, Ray Alexander, Chris Hani and Duma Nokwe, among others, were very much part of Umkhonto we Sizwe. Our intellectuals could not afford to see themselves within the limited notion of being politicians, but in a wider context of national liberation. In a sense, apartheid-colonialism provided a wider platform for intellectual commitment and critique. In the same way that intellectuals had to take a stance against fascism, they also had to do the same with regard to racialism in South Africa.
In this sense they could not be seen only as leaders of political parties but participants in the struggle to achieve goals of justice, equality, freedom and the eradication of oppression.
The strategic objectives of our national liberation struggle are of a universal character. The universal and internationalist character of the ANC is influenced firstly by the democratic ideals of the 19th century (such as the need to establish democratic institutions of representative democracy) and supported by the notion of individual human rights. It is influenced secondly by the social justice sentiments embedded in the goals of the socialist and social democratic revolutions, and thirdly by the ideas of national liberation as articulated in the Bandung Conference of 1955 and the Non-Aligned Movement.
The ANC's moral, ethical and intellectual capacity has historically ensured that the movement inspired our people to an idea of a just and fair society. The ANC led national liberation is thus a reference point of public discourse. Our policies, actions and inactions on a range of issues continue to generate discussions in South Africa and abroad. To come to where the movement is today in terms moral and political leadership required principled representation and articulation of the deepest aspirations of our people.
The role of the ANC-led movement as a collective organic intellectual force is not to be taken as a given. We have an obligation to defend and advance this tradition in the ANC. As a modernist organisation, the ANC incorporated progressive ideas such as non-sexism, non-racialism, resistance to the abuse of power, opposing tribalism and ethnicity and a principled stance on corruption. Any retreat on these ideals will weaken the capacity of the ANC to take a moral and ethical stance on issues that relate to corruption in our society. It deprives the ANC of its claim to be a collective intellectual force of our times. If the ANC is weak and is seen to be promoting unethical behaviour on the part of its cadres, it thus cannot mobilise the intellectual strata and other popular forces behind the programme of the reconstruction and development of our country. It would have no moral and ethical standing to continue to lead.
In the present phase of the National Democratic Revolution (NDR), we need intellectuals who will, by the strength of their training, continue to enrich our democratic process. Together with other motive forces they can deepen, probe, and generate alternative visions for our country.
Intellectuals should help our democratic system by continuing to question the frames of knowledge that are dominant in society - including neoliberalism, greed, individualism and excessive displays of affluence -and develop creative solutions to the problems of our world.
This perspective is taken further by Karl Marx's observation that, "The philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it". In this sense both the so-called organic and public intellectuals have a role to play in changing the world. As intellectuals their role is to question and probe developments in our country. They should reflect on where we come from and the progress of our struggle and point us to solutions that are beyond the dominant neoliberal ideology.
Intellectual inquiry will help confirm that a humane and civilised world is possible.
The idea of a just and humane society is the ultimate value for progressive intellectuals as well. Intellectuals are involved in the task of extending the frontiers of freedom and human emancipation. The ANC and its allies are pursuing this agenda via the strategy of the national democratic revolution.
Their relationship to this strategy which has public value is what separates organic intellectuals from the public intellectuals. In pursuance of this public value, public intellectuals see themselves as operating in the public sphere that is not constrained by party political considerations and other related issues.
Creating space for intellectual work
Our movement and government should continue to look at ways of broadening this area so that intellectual life is robust. The ANC needs to create and sustain an environment in which intellectual work is appreciated and promoted. For the ANC, this means the establishment of a Policy Institute that will promote research, interaction with different intellectual perspectives and policy positions, and employ professional researchers to do this work. This can constitute an important ANC platform to link with other intellectuals in society.
The ANC should continue with the establishment of the Political School which will help its members with the necessary skills of intellectual engagement.
These tools of analysis should take into account the latest developments in the areas of communication and information. A political school will contribute to the realisation of a shared ideology of achieving the objectives of the NDR in the context of the 21st century.
Our movement and government should look at ways of interacting with intellectuals inside and outside of the ANC. Specific questions need to be answered:
With regard to society in general, it is important to support institutions of higher and to fund research work. In particular, we need to ensure that there is enough capacity to produce knowledge that will advance our civilisation. We also need to look at the funding of research institutes whose aim is partly to promote public intellectual life. This should focus on long-term research on public policy issues.
Intellectuals and the Rebirth of Africa
African intellectuals played a leading role in the emancipation of Africa. WB Du Bois defined the basic question that would occupy the minds of the world as that of colour line. Against this backdrop, African intellectuals were inspired to mobilise for the liberation of the continent. By their actions and visions, they demonstrated that a new and better world is possible. This bold vision was undermined by the new post-independence African elite.
The confluence of political, economic and military factors (at the end of the last century) resulted in new possibilities for the rebirth of the continent. We have moved with speed to reorganise our political, economic and educational institutions. The African Union and the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) have become beach-heads in an all-round struggle to rebuild our continent. We have stable political institutions and peace in most parts of the continent. Intellectuals have a critical role to play in ensuring that we do not go back to where we were forty years ago.
The performance of our political and economic leaders should be carefully monitored. As we do that, our intellectuals should be driven by a sense of progress and informed by the history of the continent. The challenge is not to romanticise the past to the extent of African nativism that glorifies reactionary ideas and our supposed unchanging nature - glorifying the past as if Africans have an innate and unchanging form. The contributions of the African continent to the development our world should be understood within the challenges posed by globalisation.
The greater mobility of intellectuals is a challenge for the African renaissance. The call for them to come home and contribute to the development of our continent is not enough. The main issue is to answer the question of redirecting their academic and intellectual efforts to the African cause irrespective of where they are located in the world. Access to information, and being in a robust intellectual community, is important in the life of an intellectual. Intellectuals will always go where they think there is a positive and conducive climate for intellectual work. In this regard, most African countries are found wanting.
Mandla Nkomfe is a member of the ANC NEC Political Education Committee and ANC Chief Whip in the Gauteng Legislature.
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