GUARD THE POLITICAL IDENTITY OF THE ICONS AND THE LIBERATION STRUGGLE Great people in society, the icons, in each epoch and especially those transcending particular periods such as the philosopher Socrates, the Cuban Independence hero Jose Marti, freedom fighter Thomas Sankara and others are often associated with great ideas and or deeds. These are deeds and ideas that have significantly or permanently defined that which we hold as wise and even as common sense; these are often unassailable achievements hence they are appropriated and even expropriated. When we appropriate these historical icons themselves it is often an affirmation of the ideas and principles that they represent. Devoid of the ideas and deeds that have historically shaped these icons they become mere mortals whose DNA is indistinguishable from all of us ordinary mortals. The African National Congress has historically been associated with great ideas, policies and leadership for the past hundred and one years; the longevity of its existence catapults it on its own to a historical icon. Over a century the great ideas of the ANC have influenced and defined its spokespersons and or leaders such as Pixley ka Seme, Sol Plaatje, Chief Albert Luthuli, Braam Fischer, Charlotte Maxeke, Ashley Kriel, Ida Mntwana, Frances Baard Walter Sisulu, Oliver Tambo and Nelson Mandela the list is diverse and endless. A great effort has been made by the historical adversaries of the ANC in their new and evolving guises to firstly appropriate and at worse expropriate the ideas that the great luminaries of the ANC stood for as its faces through different epochs. This perhaps represents a challenge there are those who appropriate these ideas in order to falsify them or to falsely portray this dominant DNA as a product their seeds. A common legacy of the ANC that is worth reflecting on is the popular non - racial policies as opposed to the multi – racial policies that the Progressive Party and the Democratic Party the predecessors to the Democratic Alliance stood for, in essence they accepted that different races must live apart but be equal; in the view of the liberation movement this was not consistent with the recognition of a common humanity and a democracy based on the acceptance of majority rule. Their original ideas, perhaps still partly embedded, represented a mere different kind of a “Volk Staat.” There are also those who appropriate these ideas and in fact unconsciously assimilate them because they have come to define the DNA of modern day South Africa and to a significant extent the continent. This significantly represents the triumph of the ideas of the National Democratic Revolution the metatheory of the perspectives of the ANC led liberation movement. The latest trend has been the appropriation and scavenging on the personalities that have personified the crux of the ideas and actions of the liberation movement through different trajectories of its existence. However there is a great effort to present these personalities devoid of the political programme that they represented. When Helen Zille visits the Sol Plaatje monument on the day commemorating the 100th Anniversary of the notorious 1913 Land Act they she does not simultaneously share his views that he (and blacks in general) woke up one day and found himself a pariah in his native land. Furthermore they do not share the political programme of aggressive land reform that Sol Plaatje clamoured for. The extent to which former President of the ANC Nelson Mandela has been depoliticized and presented as a noble apolitical figure is monumental. The non – racialism he stood for is now an empty phrase, as presented by his historical adversaries that have belatedly accepted him as an icon, it is devoid of genuine equality, health, housing and quality jobs for all. In this sense the hegemonic achievements of the struggle, its icons must be guarded lest they be undressed of their political significance. In the process the icons are directly juxtaposed in contradiction to the revolutionary and popular perspectives that have shaped them and their actions. The action of laying claim to the icons of the liberation struggle by the liberal opposition is largely not innocent, it is an ingenious attempt to undermine the very ideas and actions and the organizations the icons personify. It is a frontal attack on the struggle for liberation itself, by falsely clothing these icons in liberal perspectives that they never associated with during their active political life. Mxolisi Mlatha mgmlatha@gmail John Sejake Branch Northern Cape Province: Frances Baard Region
Posted on: Mon, 15 Jul 2013 14:43:41 +0000
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