ANC’s divisive rhetoric will halt positive change

In its quest to reimagine itself as one of the world’s most glorious revolutionary movements, the ANC is not beyond pursuing the idea of what military veterans around the world call “stolen valour”.

This refers to people who impersonate military personnel or appropriate acts of bravery as their own, even though they have been nowhere near a war zone.

Thus, despite having not only little connection with Pan-Africanism or Black Consciousness back when those ideologies were being developed – and on occasion being sworn and vicious enemies of supporters of those movements – the ANC now uses their revolutionary valour to prop up its increasingly threadbare offering to the people of South Africa.

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So, on the anniversary of the death of Black Consciousness leader Steve Biko – who died in police detention on 12 September, 1977, ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula tweeted about him, perhaps to convince people the ANC is conscious about black people, the evidence to the contrary notwithstanding…

Black Consciousness was never really about race or about black versus white – but understanding the philosophy would be beyond most ANC apparatchiks.

Biko would not have been happy with present-day South Africa where African people have not seen a material improvement in their circumstances in the past 30 years.

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Mbalula was spouting revolutionary rhetoric from the 1980s recently, in congratulating Emmerson Mnangagwa on “winning” the election in Zimbabwe, hailing it as a “victory over imperialist puppets”.

It is worrying that this sort of divisive sloganeering – playing on race and the alleged unresolved sins of apartheid, coupled with an appeal to failed socialist ideology – is going to be the foundation upon which the ANC builds its 2024 election campaign.

Not only will this sort of diversion worsen divisions in our country, it will also slow down or halt any genuine attempts to bring about positive change.

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