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Subject: ANC Today 3 September 2004
ANC Today
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Volume 4, No. 35 . 3-9 September 2004
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THIS WEEK:
* Letter from the President: Nobody knows my name
* Floor-crossing: Councillors take first step in historic realignment
* Achievement Awards: Branches and councillors have a month left to enter
for awards
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LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT
Nobody knows my name
Our Heritage Month has just begun. Accordingly, many of us will be involved
in many activities to celebrate our common heritage throughout the month,
and not just on 24 September, Heritage Day. For the month, our government
has put forward the theme - "Celebrating our Living Heritage ('What we Live
') in the Tenth Year of our Democracy."
Our Department of Arts and Culture says that our living heritage consists of
all the objects and practices that "communities, groups, and in some cases,
individuals recognise as part of their cultural heritage, transmitted from
generation to generation, (which) is constantly recreated by communities and
groups in response to their environment, their interaction with nature and
their history, and provides them with a sense of identity and continuity,
thus promoting respect for cultural diversity and human creativity."
The Department says that it wants us to use Heritage Month "as a vehicle for
a long-term vision of collecting, preserving, protecting, promoting and
disseminating living heritage". Hopefully, as many of our people as possible
will participate in this process that is central to the success of our
continuing effort to give birth to a new and humane society, one of whose
critical elements is our diverse and common "sense of identity and
continuity".
Perhaps many of us do not have the time to reflect on these matters, which
UNESCO refers to as the "intangible cultural heritage". There are many
tangible problems and challenges to which all of us have to respond, daily,
arising out of the stubborn legacy of colonialism and racism. In this
situation, it may indeed be difficult to focus on what is described as
"intangible".
However, difficult as it may be, we have to grapple with the intangible. The
objective of a better life for all does not only refer to the material. It
also encompasses the spiritual, the intangible.
More than four decades ago now, in 1962, the African American novelist,
playwright, poet and essayist, James Baldwin, published the book of essays
entitled, "Nobody Knows My Name". That simple title communicated the deeply
painful message of loss of identity and continuity, of the reduction of a
human being into a thing without a soul.
It immediately brought to mind the dehumanisation of James Baldwin's
forebears, the Africans transported as slaves to the United States. As they
lost their freedom, they also lost their names. Given other and alien names
by the slave masters, they ceased to be who they had been, and were. They
became the new sub-humans defined by the slave owners.
As we imagine them silently recalling who they really were, fearful of
telling those who owned them as productive property what their real names
were, we can almost hear them saying - nobody knows my name!
The fact of slavery and the intolerable agony they had to endure as slaves,
were the tangible realities with which they had to contend every day of
their short lives. Those who observed them from afar, with no knowledge of
what it meant to be a slave, cruelly torn away from your family, your people
and your native land, would have thought that for the slaves to weep bitter
tears as they silently told themselves - nobody knows my name! - would have
been the most irrational indulgence.
And yet in their intangible creations, their songs, the slaves sought death
rather than a longer life characterised by slave labour and the denial of
their identity as fully human persons. In their 'negro spirituals', they
prayed for the speedy advent of the day when they would go to heaven, where
they would be human again.
One of these spirituals, "Nobody knows who I am", says:
"O, nobody knows who I am, a-who I am,
Till the Judgement morning
Heaven bells a-ringing, the saints all singing
Heaven bells a-ringing in my soul
Want to go to Heaven
Want to go right
Want to go to Heaven
All dressed in white.
O, nobody knows who I am, a-who I am,
Till the Judgement morning
Heaven bells a-ringing, the saints all singing
Heaven bells a-ringing in my soul
If you don't believe
That I've been redeemed
Follow me down
To Jordan's stream."
The spiritual "Oh Freedom" is perhaps even more direct.
"Oh freedom
Oh freedom
Oh freedom over me!
And before I'd be a slave
I'll be buried in my grave
And go home to my Lord and be free.
No more moaning
No more moaning
No more moaning over me!
And before.
There'll be singing.
There'll be shouting.
There'll be praying."
The slaves prayed for Judgement morning, when they would be redeemed, when
they would be free and home again, with Heaven's sacred bells ringing in the
souls of those who, on earth, had been treated as nothing more than soulless
and disposable beasts of burden.
Born in 1891, the African American, Claude McKay, was one of the poets, with
Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes and others, whose writings gave birth to the
period of the flowering of African American creativity described as "the
Harlem Renaissance".
Fortunate to have been born after the emancipation of the slaves and the
aftermath of the birth of the Pan African Movement led by W.E.B. du Bois and
others, Claude McKay could refer elsewhere other than the grave and heaven,
to reclaim his sense of identity and continuity.
To repossess this intangible right, he composed the poem entitled "The
Tropics in New York", which reads:
"Bananas ripe and green, and ginger-root,
Cocoa in pods and alligator pears,
And tangerines and mangoes and grapefruit,
Fit for the highest prize at parish fairs,
Set in the window, bringing memories
Of fruit-trees laden by low-singing rills,
And dewy dawns, and mystical blue skies
In benediction over nun-like hills.
My eyes grew dim and I could no more gaze;
A wave of longing through my body swept,
And, hungry for the old, familiar ways,
I turned aside and bowed my head and wept."
The sight of tropical African fruits in the shops of New York had reawakened
in Claude McKay an innate and unquenchable hunger to return to his roots, to
be African and human again. An instinctive and long-dormant physical longing
to return to the native land of his ancestors rocked his soul, evoking tears
of misery that he could not return to the old, familiar ways he carried in
his genes, in which he would have no cause to cry out - nobody knows my
name!
As African South Africans we have, perhaps, not known as much pain as was
borne by the fellow Africans who were transported across the Atlantic Ocean
to serve the New World as slaves. Certainly, the sight of tropical fruits in
our supermarkets has never reawakened in us suppressed memories of a
continent to which we once belonged. The pain imposed on us by racism has
never forced us to think that death was preferable to life.
But we too have had to contend with an historical reality that deliberately
sought to deprive us of our sense of identity and continuity. Colonial and
apartheid oppression sought to rob us of our "cultural heritage, transmitted
from generation to generation, (which) is constantly recreated by
communities and groups in response to their environment, their interaction
with nature and their history".
Deliberately, this racist system sought to destroy everything that would
give the indigenous majority a sense of identity and continuity. This
entailed not only the military defeat of this majority and its political
subjugation.
It also meant the total transformation of the life conditions that would
give the African majority the possibility to maintain its identity and its
living heritage. The Africans lost their land and therefore the possibility
for an independent economic existence. But this also meant the virtual loss
of the intangibles, of such cultural norms as communal life, human
solidarity and ubuntu, which were the non-material expression of the
material conditions of pre-colonial society.
Our "interaction with nature and history" meant that our living heritage had
to bend to the dictates of the dominant social order, which, among other
things, celebrated an intensely acquisitive individualism. Based essentially
on the values of social and community cohesion, it had to find its place
within a society on which the ruling group had imposed the social
norm -everyone for himself or herself, and the devil take the hindmost!
Our living heritage would find great affinity with the sentiment expressed
by the British historian, R.H. Tawney, when he wrote in his book "The
acquisitive society" that, "the heart of the problem is not economic. It is
a question of moral relationships. This is the citadel that must be
attacked.the immoral, self-seeking philosophy which underlies much of modern
society."
Today, and as part of our struggle to build a moral and people-centred
society, our country is preoccupied with the challenge of what Nelson
Mandela once described as "the RDP of the soul". We are correctly concerned
about issues of moral regeneration and a new patriotism. We are proud to say
that we are "proudly South African".
All this has to do with the living, intangible heritage for whose
preservation, protection, promotion and dissemination, we will seek to use
Heritage Month. It should therefore be clear that the fact that it is
'intangible' does not mean that it is unimportant.
It has to do with an age when we too had occasion to say - nobody knows my
name. For colonialism and apartheid also deliberately sought to negate our
cultural heritage, to deny us our own sense of identity and continuity. In
the process our own masters tried to take away our names. Kopano became
Jane, and Sipho, Jim. Thus renamed, they sought to use us as putty in their
hands, to model and redefine us, so that we would take it as an expression
of the will of God, that we should forever do their bidding, as their
willing and mindless instruments.
Because the intangible mattered to the oppressed, the ordinary working
people responded in their own way to the attempt to deprive them of their
identity. As they engaged in hard labour, under the watchful eyes of the
white overseers, they chanted - "abelungu ngoodamn; basibiza ooJim." These
rhymes, with their rhythm, have also become part of our living heritage, an
example of the process of the re-creation of our intangible heritage in
response to our social environment.
For many centuries racism has been a defining feature of our society. There
are some in our country who find it to their material advantage that all of
us should ignore the stark reality that this has left us with a deeply
entrenched legacy of racial divisions and inequalities. But this reality is
also directly relevant to what we will be doing during Heritage Month and
subsequently, to assert our diverse identities, while also promoting our
unity, as well as respect for our cultural diversity and the creativity of
all our people.
In his book, "Nobody Knows My Name", James Baldwin also wrote about the
impact of a long history of racism on his own country, the United States. A
creative and sensitive thinker and writer, he knew that what he cared most
about, the intangible cultural heritage of his people and country, had to
contend with, and thrive within the context of that long history.
And so he confronted the matter directly, refusing to draw comfort from the
promise of a better life in heaven, reluctant to still the demons by hoping
for his return to Africa, as we should be reluctant to still the demons by a
casual reference to a Rainbow Nation. Telling a story about himself, he
wrote that "the political and spiritual currents of my very early youth
involved a return to Africa, or a rejection of it; either choice would lead
to suicide, or madness, for, in fact, neither choice was possible."
James Baldwin also wrote: "The reason that it is important - of the utmost
importance - for white people, here, to see the Negroes as people like
themselves is that white people will not, otherwise, be able to see
themselves as they are. . . And this long history of moral evasion has had
an unhealthy effect on the total life of the country."
During our Heritage Month, we must all see all our people as people like
ourselves. And thus each one of us as national groups will be able to see
ourselves as we are. By freeing ourselves of the burdens of prejudice,
enabling ourselves to celebrate our diverse living heritage, we will achieve
what James Baldwin called "the act of assuming and becoming oneself", no
longer denied the right to call ourselves by our own names.
Thabo Mbeki
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FLOOR-CROSSING
Councillors take first step in historic realignment
The floor-crossing period for local councillors, which opened this week and
continues until 15 September, has seen the first batch of public
representatives of the New National Party (NNP) join the ANC following the
NNP's recent decision to dissolve and encourage its members to join the ANC.
By the end of the second day of the period, significant numbers of NNP
councillors had joined the ANC in the Western Cape, Gauteng, KwaZulu Natal
and other parts of the country. This is the first part of a process of NNP
members joining the ANC, which is expected to be completed during the
floor-crossing period for national and provincial legislators in September
next year.
For the party that was responsible for the formulation of apartheid and its
maintenance over four decades, this decision represents an important move to
ensure that the legacy of the party ultimately involves the embrace of a
democratic, inclusive and non-racial society. It represents an acceptance by
the leadership and membership of the party that, after decades of conflict
and division, the future of all South Africans can be secured through unity
and cooperation.
The NNP decision follows a period of closer cooperation between the ANC and
NNP in the pursuit of common objectives. These include building a national
consensus founded on true South African patriotism as a critical instrument
in the effort to deracialise our society; and developing a unity of purpose
to confront the great challenges of our country. The cooperation was also
meant to foster reconciliation and good inter-community relations to achieve
a truly non-racial and non-sexist South African society. It recognised that
South Africa is an African country, and that both organisations have a
responsibility to mobilise extensively the relevant human and material
resources necessary for the development of both our country and our
continent.
The cooperation was taken further in June this year, when the two parties
agreed that the Freedom Charter, adopted by the Congress of the People in
1955, should form the common departure point for this relationship.
In a joint statement issued in June, the organisations outline the basis for
the further development of the cooperation relationship: "The first decade
of freedom has been characterised by a growing spirit of unity among all our
people, as they work together to build a new South Africa that belongs to
all who live in it. There has been a fundamental realignment of South Africa
's party political environment over the last ten years, requiring all
parties to re-examine their role and contribution to the future development
of South Africa."
Through its relationship of cooperation the ANC and the NNP had made
progress in mobilising communities in support of the broad goals agreed by
the organisations; had stabilised governance and accelerated social delivery
in areas previously controlled by the opposition; and had forged a new
political spirit of cooperation and progress, the statement said.
This new political spirit was highlighted in the April 14 election results,
which showed a weakening of the combined support for those parties
campaigning on the anti-ANC line. While the results saw a significant
decline in the support of the NNP, they confirmed an increasing desire by
South Africans for a shift away from the politics of division.
The joint statement, released after the election, said: "The NNP, which was
once the party of apartheid, has evolved politically to a point where it is
well placed to play a meaningful role in working with others to address the
social, economic and psychological legacy of that system. The ANC, which led
the people in dismantling apartheid, remains a political home for South
Africans from all communities, classes and backgrounds who share the ideal
of a united, non-racial, non-sexist and democratic nation."
Any current NNP members wishing to join the ANC will have the same rights
and responsibilities as any other ANC members. All ANC members join the
organisation voluntarily in their individual capacity, and make a
declaration to abide by the aims and objectives of the organisation and
respect the Constitution and structures of the organisation.
The ANC will welcome any members of the New National Party (NNP) who wish to
join the ANC in building a people's contract at local government level to
create work and fight poverty. Any NNP councillors who join the ANC will do
so in accordance with transitional arrangements agreed between the two
parties.
The 'floor-crossing' legislation is an important instrument to accommodate
instances of significant party political realignment between elections. The
need for such legislation was highlighted by the formation of the Democratic
Alliance (DA) in 2000, and the NNP's subsequent withdrawal from it. Because
voters choose the party, rather than the candidate, of the their choice, a
member of parliament or member of a provincial legislature would usually
lose their seat if their party became part of another party or subdivided to
form a new party.
As a result, even after the formation of the DA, the MPs and MPLs of its
constituent parties still remained representatives of the original parties.
There was no legal provision for them all to become DA members of
parliament.
When local government elections were held in 2000, these parties contested
the election under the banner of the DA. But when the NNP withdrew from the
DA, there was no legal provision for councillors who formed the NNP
'component' of the DA to be representatives of the NNP.
It was in part to address this anomaly that the 'crossing-the-floor' package
of laws was introduced. It was also aimed at providing a way of
accommodating any future instance of political re-alignment in councils and
legislatures without undermining the basic principles of the country's
electoral system -and without causing disruption to the process of
governance. This is in line with the practices of a number of democracies
across the world which use the proportional representation electoral system.
During the floor-crossing period, the ANC will welcome into its ranks any
local government councillors from other parties who meet the criteria laid
out in law and who demonstrate a genuine interest in working as part of the
ANC to meet the needs of the South African people.
All ANC provincial and regional structures will be monitoring the
floor-crossing process to ensure that it strengthens the ongoing effort to
improve service delivery and accountability at local level. Structures will
therefore be required to give attention to the track record and integrity of
any councillors wishing to join the organisation.
The ANC is seeking people who can add value to the work of the organisation,
not simply people who will increase the organisation's numbers.
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ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS
Branches and councillors have a month left to enter for awards
Branches of the ANC, Women's League and Youth League, and ANC councillors,
have just under a month to submit entries for the ANC's 2004 Annual
Achievement Awards.
Branches and groups of councillors who want to be considered for these
awards, need to submit their entry forms by 30 September. Each year the ANC
presents awards in four categories: to the best performing ANC branch, ANC
Women's League branch, ANC Youth League branch and group of ANC councillors.
These awards are presented to the winning structures at the ANC's annual
anniversary celebrations on 8 January.
The awards were initiated in 2000 to highlight the achievements of ANC
structures, and to reward best practice within the organisation. This forms
part of a broader effort to strengthen ANC branches and those of the
leagues, and to locate the ANC branch at the centre of all ANC activities
and programmes. It is also meant to acknowledge the contribution of the
branch to its immediate community.
The winning branches are those which have been able to successfully recruit
new members to the ANC, induct them in the practice and politics of the ANC,
and involve them in practical work to take forward the programme of the
movement. They must have strong roots within their communities, be active in
addressing problems that face the community, and be at the forefront of
local development.
The winning group of councillors are those which have most effectively in
the past year used the institution of local government to benefit the people
of their area. They must be united and work as a collective. They must have
a clear vision for the council, and a programme of development that is
realistic and sustainable.
The awards are named for outstanding cadres of the ANC, whose individual
qualities of commitment and selflessness are an example to every ANC member.
During their lives, each of these people made an immeasurable contribution
to the struggle for freedom and a better life for all.
The award for the best performing ANC branch is named after Sol Plaatje, a
prominent founder of the ANC and its first Secretary General. A
distinguished writer and political activist, Plaatje played a leading role
in mobilising opposition to the 1913 Native Land Act. The award recognises
Plaatje's conviction that only united, organised action can bring about
meaningful change. The ANC branch remains to this day the primary vehicle
for social transformation.
The Charlotte Maxeke Award goes to the best performing ANC Women's League
branch. Maxeke, described as "the mother of African freedom in this
country", was the first president of the Bantu Women's League. Formed in
1918, the league was the forerunner of the ANC Women's League. Throughout
her life, Maxeke showed outstanding qualities as an ANC activist, social
worker, teacher, journalist, church leader and thinker.
The Anton Lembede Award is awarded to the best performing ANC Youth League
branch. Lembede was a founding member and the first President of the ANC
Youth League. Though he died in 1947 at the tragically early age of 33,
Lembede made an indelible mark on the history of the ANC, the role of the
youth and the direction of the struggle. It is Lembede's emphasis on the
unity of the youth which must guide ANC Youth League branches as they
continue his struggle for national liberation and development.
The ZK Matthews Award goes to the best performing group of ANC local
councillors. Matthews is credited with initiating the process which led to
the Freedom Charter, which stated the fundamental will of all South Africans
that 'the people shall govern'. Matthews was President of the ANC in the
Cape province, Africa Secretary of the World Council of Churches, and
Botswana's first ambassador to the United States. The award is a tribute to
his contribution to the affirmation of the will of the people and his strong
belief that government should act as the servant of the people.
The previous winners of the award, for 2003, were the Ivory Park North
branch in Gauteng (Sol Plaatje Award); Kabokweni Ward 21 Women's League
branch in Mpumalanga (Charlotte Maxeke Award); Thabo Mbeki Youth League
branch in the Free State (Anton Lembede Award); and the ANC councillors in
the Amathole region in Eastern Cape (ZK Matthews Award).
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