We have seen the evidence: it seems voters are not impressed by Steve Biko’s Black Consciousness or Robert Sobukwe’s Pan-Africanism.
There is now sufficient evidence for people to form their own judgement as to whether Azapo and the PAC have the potential to become a formidable opposition to the ANC.
It has already been suggested by some that infighting, power-mongering, big egos and self-serving ambition by leaders in the two organisations has plunged them into political limbo.
It is curious, indeed, that they are nowhere to be seen in the most exciting election since 1994. Perhaps it is too soon to make final judgments on Azapo and the PAC.
I hope my opinion — and it is only an opinion — will not be regarded as being in any way authoritative until the final results have been announced.
But this is an exceedingly slippery age for Black Consciousness and Pan-Africanism. There are many Africans who have vested interests in the election outcome and the fate of these erstwhile organisations.
Battles have been fought over the last 15 years over different interpretations of the events surrounding the disappearance of what was once upon a time considered “authentic African political leadership”.
It should be noted that these organisations were seen as such because they not only espoused African self-determination but rejected leadership by those who came outside their community like whites and communists.
In fact, they asserted that everyone must subject themselves to the will of the indigenous majority and do as Africans do in their country.
It may not be fair to say this type of political thinking was bordering on the racist and was bound to end up in the dustbin of history with its exclusivity and African superiority.
The fact is that in the last 15 years, former Bantustan leaders like Mangosuthu Buthelezi and Bantu Holomisa, or a conservative liberal like Helen Zille have done much better than Azapo and the PAC combined.
The African National Congress has, now, established itself as the dominant force in articulating and representing the aspirations and hopes of the African majority. It is the most credible organisation.
There was a time not too long ago when Azapo and the PAC were mentioned in the same breath as the ANC when people spoke of political leadership and the liberation struggle.
But it now seems strange that when people discuss politics or go to vote, it seems that these two organisations do not feature in the radar of African political consciousness.
Yet these organisations have a great advantage when it comes to being intuitively connected to the African masses.
Ironically, the people they claim to love seem now to look down upon them from the ANC pedestal and condemn their outdated, irrelevant and ineffective strategies.
The only yardstick to measure their political presence, relevance and credibility is to look at how they fared in the elections. This is the only measurement to determine whether the spirit of Biko and Sobukwe are alive.
Occasionally, a clever and well-educated comrade might challenge the association of the two organisations with the late heroes claiming that they have morphed into something else.
But if Nelson Mandela belongs to today’s ANC, so Biko and Sobukwe live in their own organisations or their offshoots. It would be safer to say that Azapo and the PAC are not yet dead but definitely in the political intensive care unit.
Well, the situation might change when the final results are announced. But things seem to be really bad for Azapo and the PAC.
malume memela
“There was a time not too long ago when Azapo and the PAC were mentioned in the same breath as the ANC”
those were the days of apla & mk. nothing materialised after that!
thanks to power hungry nuts who took the party of ‘izwe lamafrika’ straight to drains. i believe sobukwe & biko’s corpses are turning themselves upside down with rage. it’s unjustiable.
supprisingly, those two organisations are competitive forces at the tertiary education level, but they just can’t translate that momentum outside school corridors– because of their elders who’re strangling themselves for authority.
it’s such a sham
hey whena why you such a…fascist?.
“Black Consciousness” was always overt racism a la its white AWB equivalent and it was always a tiny loony-fringe notion whose time would pass. Well, that time has come. Nothing to see here. Move on.
Mbeki was more Pan Africanist and more Black Power than either Biko or Sobukwe, and Mbeki’s crackpot interpretations of those visions have tarnished them forever.
Both Biko and Sobukwe were intellectually and spiritually Mbeki’s superiors.
Pan-Africanism – or pan-anything-ism, is dead in the water. The issue here is not about Biko or Sebukwe, but about the concept of an indigenous people, and the subjugation to the majority. That simply does not work over a large land-mass that is ethnically and culturally diverse.
People have a desire for self determinism, for self-rule, and that’s why Europe, a continent as big as Houghton, has 3000 countries, each speaking their own language (Tongue in cheek alert!).
Point still stands that Germans want to be German, Italians want to be Italian, South Africans want to be South African… the concept of “uniting” a continent – like pure Pan-Africanism suggests, is a failure in critical thinking, because who rules? “Oh, we do”.
But what does the Ghanaians have to say about that? Or the Kenyans for that matter?
Different people with different cultures do better ruling themselves than to “subject themselves to the will of the indigenous majority”. If that was the case, the Germans would rule Europe!
Russia has tried this with the failed attempt of the USSR – try to unite under one banner and one economy and poof – miserable failure. Even in smaller countries we see the yearning for independence, as with the Cornwall folk who believe they should be independent from Rule Brittania, not to mention the Basque separatists.
So forget about Pan-Africanism – as a concept it can never work, and is only a fun philosophy to discuss over expensive whiskies.
‘I hope my opinion — and it is only an opinion — will not be regarded as being in any way authoritative’
I think your hope will come true in spades!
Victor Hugo said “there is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come”. It might, equally, be said that there is nothing quite as pathetic and feeble as an idea whose time has passed. That applies perfectly to Black Consciousness. The voters of SA agree with me.
The PAC killed itslef. It moved from being Africanist and BC to racist, homophobic and sexist. You cannot alienate 50% of the polulation (women) then coloureds (7+%) then gay people (5+%) and then claim to have a fighting chance.SA moved on and teh PAC and AZAPO abandoned Biko’s ideas and instead embraced Mugabe style pseudo africanist rants… tragic.
A famous Bushism reads, “One of the things important about history is to remember the true history.”
Ever heard of the cliche. History is written by the victor. Pop culture, hegemony, incumbency, hegemony.A party stealing the struggle fron the people and the victory, a party becoming the struggle incarnate to the exclusion of others.
When do you ever hear of these names, Clarence Makwetu, Uncle Zeph and others, Harare Declaration etc.How many associate and ever hear Biko associated with AZAPO? In fact the last time I heard of Uncle Zeph was as a relation to Kutlwano Masote during those days of the Three Tenors concert. How much of June 16 was ANC etc.
To borrow from a poem quoted by Mbeki “By whom, and by what means, was this designed?”
But how long will the ANC ride on the coat tails of history. The irony about life as ZANU PF learnt is that as more people become materially better off and enlightened they begin to seek the intangible. Crime and accountability have been shown to affect the materially better off. Soon others will clamour for a constituency based system where the individuals matter as much as the party.
@ Lyndall;”I think there may be some who think Mandela has reverted to his tribal childhood and forgotten he was ever a democrat (if he ever was).”
How can you insult Mandela like that? This great man was physically tortured,starved and assulted in the most painful and unspeakable ways by a government which unleashed terror on blacks for in the name of protecting YOUR priviledge! Despite all his suffering, he forgave and called for a more united SA. He was instrumental in ensuring that white women were provided for through AA policies. Apartheid sometimes discriminated against women, in general (although white women were still significantly more priviledged than blacks, and especially Africans).Yes, his endorsement of Zuma is misguided but one must understand that this is a party to which he had belonged, which defined his political ideals and which had nurtured him since he was a young man. What do you expect him to do? Join the Freedom Front? Get real. Mandela has sacrificed too much for white South Africans, many of whom are primarily concerned with the protection of their privilege and do not care a damn about reconciliation. As Thabo Mbeki once said; it seems that it’s only blacks who have been opening their hearts and willing to forgive and reconcile but many whites in this country (not all of them of course) are making it difficult because of their racist attitudes towards blacks!
The ANC must make up its mind if it is Pan Africanist or non racist and not sexist – because it can’t be both.
Gender equality is not high on the agenda in Sudan or Nigeria, even if they are black.
And expelling Asians has been a favourite theme of Central African states in the past.
Phillipa
The reason we even have a communist party at all is because Mandela, when leader of the ANCYL, refused to allow membership of the ANC to whites, coloureds or Asians.
Do read some books!
And Mandela — a trained lawyer — knew exactly what he was doing when he chose to break the law, under which he was duly charged, tried in an open court and convicted and sentenced. The treatment he received in prison was always above board and, in the latter stages, rather awash with favouritism. He lived for several years of the final period of his 27 year incarceration in much greater comfort at taxpayers’ expense than millions of law-abiding black citizens do, right to this day.
Let’s not mythologise about Nelson Mandela, shall we? Stick to the history and the facts.
Nevermind the BC parties’s poor showing,how do you explain the shocking fact that your ANC had 200 million election budget + madiba dragged out of retirement + sabc propaganda+dancing populist + zulu nationalism in kzn + food parcels courtersy of tax-payers and “gift of the givers” but only manage 65.9% + no two-thirds compared to 69.8 + two thirds they got from last elections?
Also remember that Mandela thought they would be freed within 5 years – by a people’s revolution.
PAC became an enemy to itself. An important document by former PAC UN representative Henry Isaacs titled “Struggles within the Struggle” is a well-researched piece by a party insider.It frankly pinpoints the problems and figures inside the PAC who had been conniving with enemy forces to destroy the PAC.Those elements have ensured that the mysterious deaths of Jafta Masemola, Sabelo Phama and others, even the expulsion of youth and worker leaders who popularised the banned PAC inside the country were not probed. A very important section within the PAC known as Azanian Marxists and “Revolutionary Watchdogs” who were thoroughly grounded in the party line and strategies were hounded down and forced out of the party structures by these imperialist agents.As long as they continue to hold the reigns of power and authority, the PAC can never grow as the dynamic political force. These elements are hellbent in sowing confusion including an unintellectual and undemocratic culture within PAC. Motsoko Pheko has added another factor of wanting the PAC in his own pocket for own self-interest.Dynamic leaders like Godi, Plaatjie and many talented from exile and the youth including the likes of Dikgang Moseneke, Sipho Shabalala, Mark Shinners and many more with vision were harrassed and frustrated as these elements sought to ensure their masters agenda was made to succeed.The first step is for the PAC revolutionary forces to close ranks, expose this enemy destabilisation project and deal with these elements decisively.
Mandela was not dragged out of retirement. He has never retired. As an astute politician and showman he probably planned the whole thing.
Mandela WAS president during the Arms Deal and has every reason to want it buried just like the rest of the ANC.
The BCM was an continues to be misunderstood by most South Africans. The comments on this page illustrate that. Hopefully you know what you are talking about:) To mention Sobukwe and Biko in the same breath as Azapo and the PAC is flawed especially in the contemporary context.
Oh boy…
Phillipa, Jon and Lyndall’s side show vis a’ vis Oom Memela’s post is interesting.
Was Mandela a democrat? – define a democrat to me please!
Didn’t FW claim to be a democrat, I believe even the Groot Krokodil in his kitchen thouht of himself as a democrat – so who is a democrat?
Azapo’s fortunes are captured aptly in the Sunday Times of 26/04 in an article about its president – too good for their own good!
As for PAC the less said about them the better South Africans will sleep at night.
Hlabirwa
Neither Tutu nor Mandela could be democrats in a war situation. Do you think Churchill was a democrat or an autocrat?
Which is why AFTER the war the Brits voted him out. Leadership qualities needed in peacetime are not the same as those needed in wartime.
Which does not mean that Churhill is not still an icon to the Brits and always will be.
Hlabirwa
Hlabirwa who? That political mole of Godi with no thought of its own? For the record, it was he and Godi who because of stomach politics tried to destroy the PAC albeit unsuccessfully. PAC brought food on your table when you could not think beyond your tummy. We may be stumbling but we shall rise up one day, now that you, Thami and Godi have shipped out of the organisation too big for your uncomprehending minds.