The unresolved national question

By Karl Cloete

When the former ANC secretary general, Kgalema Mothlanthe, presented the organisational report to the 2007 ANC national conference in Polokwane, he raised this important point in relation to the need to build a non-racial society:

“The Freedom Charter tells us that South Africa belongs to all who live in it and that all national groups shall have equal rights. The struggle to build a non-racial society has proceeded apace. Never before have South Africans been so united behind a common identity. Nevertheless, racism – built on the material foundation of the economic and social marginalisation of black people – continues to be the lived reality for the majority of our people. The poison of racial hatred is all too frequently evident in the perpetration of hate-crimes and violence against black people, particularly in rural areas”

South Africa, since Polokwane, has seen various national initiatives in an effort to foster a united nation with varying results.

The Freedom Charter’s outlook on equality and freedom
The records show that of a total of 2 884 delegates who were in attendance in Kliptown when the Freedom Charter was adopted in 1955. A total of 721 were women; 2 186 were African delegates; there were 320 Indian delegates; 230 were coloured; and 112 were white.

It is appropriate that we remind ourselves that the Freedom Charter declared that in a liberated South Africa:

• all people shall have equal rights to use their own language and to develop their own culture;

• all laws which discriminate on grounds of race, colour or belief shall be repealed; and

• the preaching and practice national, race, or colour discrimination shall be a punishable crime.

Jack Simons, in March of 1985, wrote a piece in which he presented a compelling argument on this subject. He said that:

• The closer South Africa advances towards a unified society the greater will be the resistance from divisive forces represented by tribalism and racism;

• Racism and tribalism occur in a class society in which differences of language and culture become an appendage to the primary cleavage between the owners of property and the propertyless workers.

• The exploiting class, trading in South Africa as a national or racial category, perpetuates its supremacy by dividing the oppressed into competing groups fighting one another for land, jobs and power, instead of combining their forces for united action against oppression.
On the 30th anniversary of the Freedom Charter Jabulani Nobleman ‘Mzala’ Nxumalo said:

“The words ‘South Africa belongs to all who live in it , black and white’ embody the principle that all people can live in South Africa whatever their colour and that this is their right that will be dependent constitutionally, not a mere privilege to one section to another …. South Africa shall not be a country divided unto itself and dominated by a particular national group.”

Through fierce revolutionary struggle our society has undergone significant changes from 1955 until the democratic breakthrough in 1994.

Some of the key challenges that we must face is that we have gained political freedom, but economic power remains firmly in the hands of white monopoly capital. In our country today, poverty, joblessness and inequality are still largely confined to the black majority. Even progress by the black middle class is constrained by the reality that whites still disproportionately control the economic and senior positions in the economy.

South Africa has overtaken Brazil as the most unequal society in the world. To understand this reality, read the Cosatu paper presented to the 2010 ANC and SACP bilaterals which point out the apartheid fault-lines in every sphere of South African society, including the provision of housing, education and health, and the labour market.

Income inequality remains extremely high. One of the measurers of these inequalities is the fact that the workers’ share of the national income has declined since 1981. The decline continued during the first 12 years of democracy. Profits continue to increase. Poverty remains the reality for between 40% and 50% of the population.

For those who believe in the emancipation of the working class and the philosophy of a non-racial and non-sexist society, it is painful to see the racial stereotypes and prejudices that still play themselves out between white, Indian, coloured and African workers – whether subtle or in disguised forms. In dealing with this reality, it is instructive to draw on an observation made by Murphy Morobe, the former publicity secretary of the UDF, in the Mail & Guardian of July 4 2003, on the question of non-racialism’s long journey in South Africa;

“ …… It has never been suggested that reversing more than 300 years of racially defined political and economic relations would be easy … The problem is that when racialism is dressed up, its carriers are often unaware of it. Racialism is often like an odourless, colourless poison – dangerous but deadly. When it comes in this guise it has the propensity to be patronising and self-righteous while seeking to advance itself for selfish ends… All that 1994 did was to provide us with the rules of the road as we march towards a vision of non-racialism and non-sexism.”

We must accept that apartheid is responsible for the legacy we are confronted with today, but how we confront this legacy is a critical and strategic question. The tactics that we employ must be informed by our strategic thinking.

What apartheid did
Reminding ourselves of apartheid history can help us understand the extent to which the regime divided the lives of people from different race groups.

“In furtherance of its policy of divide and rule, the apartheid regime attempts to play off the main black groups against one another by a system of differential levels of oppression and the imposition of separate sham constitutional ‘solutions’. Within the black groups it tries to win over collaborators and agents so as to separate them from the mainstream of the revolution.” The Green Book</span> Report of the politico-military strategy commission to the ANC national executive committee in August 1979.

At the workplace level, the regime’s Manpower Act and training boards created divisions between white, coloured and African workers. It allowed white workers to become artisans while excluding coloureds and Africans from this training. Gradually coloureds were included and, almost as an afterthought, Africans were allowed to train to become artisans.

How do we deal with the past?
In dealing with the national question the Green Book Report of the Politico-Military Strategy Commission to the ANC National Executive Committee in August 1979 articulated the following position:

“The main content of the present phase of our struggle is to achieve the aims of our national-democratic revolution whose essence is the national liberation of the black oppressed. Among the black oppressed it is the African majority which, as a community, suffers the most intense forms of racist domination.

… The victorious outcome of the present phase of our struggle will create a people’s power whose main immediate task will be to put an end to the special form of colonial-type oppression, guarantee democratic rights for all South Africans and place the main means of production in the hands of a people’s state.

The aims of our national-democratic revolution will only be fully realised with the construction of a social order in which all the historic consequences of national oppression and its foundation, economic exploitation, will be liquidated, ensuring the achievement of real national liberation and social emancipation. An uninterrupted advance towards this ultimate goal will only be assured if, within the alignment of revolutionary forces struggling to win the aims of our national-democratic revolution, the dominant role is played by the oppressed working people.”

Almost 30 years later the ANC has changed the lives of our people with the provision of water, health care, electricity, housing, education and safety and security.

Our Constitution and its bill of rights guarantee both human and socio-economic rights. The world regards it as a progressive model. And yet, despite this progress, the Western Cape, for example, remains the most racially segregated province with socio-economic disparities and inequalities continuing to block significant redistribution of wealth and social transformation.

While this national context is an important point of departure to analyse where we are and how we ought to deepen the NDR for a thoroughgoing and radical transformation, we dare not lose sight of regional dynamics which play an important part in how we apply tactics and strategies so as to rally our people against ignorance, prejudice, exclusion and marginalisation.

Karl Cloete is Numsa deputy general secretary