Umrabulo

Beyond rhetoric!

A commentary on the Current Ideo-political debate within the PAC

By Lindokuhle Patiwe

Western Cape Provincial organiser

The first sign of ideological degeneration in an organisation is when its members are unable to go beyond rhetoric. To be sure, rhetoric is important. It helps in the rallying of the masses towards a common cause, history has also shown how rhetoric as a form of propaganda has been one of the best ways to send out the message of any organisation. However, the organisation itself, especially among its own members must be careful not to be trapped in it. It is important that cadres of the movement among themselves can debate and analyse the situation in its concreteness or what the German philosopher, Martin Heidegger would call its facticity. This kind of analysis in a given situation requires cadres of the movement to be able to move beyond rhetoric, to properly grasp the situation obtained on the ground in its facticity.

It is no longer a secret. The PAC is at a theoretical impasse. The party is engulfed with deep ideo-political differences. The questions of whether to go the parliamentary route of multi-party democracy or to go back to the bush as our forefathers did in 1960 are not mere factional debates, but rather are deeply political and theoretical debates that we as the organisation need to have serious discussions about.

Some of the key theoretical issues that are at the centre of the current ideo-political debate within the party in my opinion today are:

1. The ideo-political nature of the organisation

1.1. Here we find questions of what political philosophy does the PAC adhere to?

1.2. Is African Nationalism a narrow skin deep philosophy espoused by bourgeois elements within the organisation?

1.3. Does the PAC adhere to the position that we are oppressed as a nation or is it part of those that argue that the fundamental problem in the world is class?

2. The form of struggle to take in the current juncture of the struggle for the liberation of Africa

2.1. Here we find debates about the efficacy of the participation of the PAC in the current multi-party democratic set up of South Africa.

2.2. Should the PAC remain participating in parliamentary democracy, or should it wage a full-on people’s war against the neo-liberal establishment?

In this brief essay I use the PAC case to give direction in how to answer some of these deeply political debates that are currently taking place within the party. Mine is not to give an authoritative answer to these questions, but rather to open the debate in a way that can allow us to navigate the current political terrain in the most theoretically acute way possible. To go beyond rhetoric.

The main aim of the essay is to think in communion with fellow Africanists on the question of the principal form of struggle of the PAC in the post-apartheid-apartheid South Africa. Is the PAC participation in the multi-party democracy a form of collaboration that negates the party’s principle of non-collaboration? Should the PAC withdraw from parliament and go on a campaign to mobilise the people for a people’s war against the establishment? What should be the PAC posture towards the current ruling party, the ANC?

The essay answers these questions not by giving definitive and authoritative answers, but rather tackles these questions in a way that opens genuine debate and communal thinking within the organisation. I hope that it too, within the PAC ranks, shall be welcomed as a comradely gesture in pursuit of the best ideas that can take the national liberation struggle forward.

It is a well-known fact that the PAC membership is divided over the question of participation in the multi-party democracy of today. This division dates back to the transitional period of the late 80’s up to the 1994 elections. This division is so obvious that one is not surprised to meet people who consider themselves members of the PAC but have no qualm with claiming publicly that they do not vote, there are still to this day, branches of the organisation that have made it clear that they do not participate in elections but are involved in every other aspect of the organisational activities of the party.

But the fact of the matter is that the party pronounced itself on the question of participating in elections. The infamous Mthatha congress resolved this issue. However, this does not mean that as members of the party, 29 years after the decision has been taken, we cannot look back with the benefit of hindsight and interrogate whether the decision to participate in this multi-party democracy was a correct one or not. We cannot be prisoners to our own decisions, especially when we have the gift of hindsight on our side.

At an Imbizo organised by students of Leo Marquard residence at the University of Cape Town in 2015, Xola Skosana proclaimed that “the Mandela plan has failed, and it has failed dismally”. The sentiments of the former clergy are one that resonate with a lot of young people in occupied Azania today. Many Scholars have also argued that the current constitutional framework is anti-black in the sense that it does not provide for a liberatory framework to resolve the item of conflict in Azania, the land question. The Africanist scholar Dr Ndumiso Dladla has been one of the few scholars that have consistently maintained this point within Academia. In his brilliant book titled Here is a Table, tracing how the South African Constitution is in sync with the continuous colonial mandate in South Africa. Dr Dladla argues that the idea of a constitutional “breakthrough” in South Africa of 1996 is a myth. He shows how the current South African constitution is not necessarily the first constitution in the country and therefore, the introduction of a constitution ceteris parabus cannot be seen as a breakthrough for the African liberation movement in these Southern parts of Africa. He goes further in the book to show how the South African constitution itself legitimises the illegitimate right for settlers to land that was taken from the indigenous African people through the unjust wars of colonialism. There are many other public intellectuals outside of the academic space that have also made similar arguments. The former #RhodesMustFall and #FeesMustFall leader, Masixole Mlandu, has argued that the day-to-day situation in South Africa shows that South Africa still follows the Manichean set up as described by the Martinique born revolutionary theoretician, Frantz Fanon, in his book The Wretched of the Earth.

Therefore, some have argued that if indeed we can agree that the South African Constitution is nothing, but a legitimisation of the bounty taken by Settlers in the unjust wars of colonialism and the continuation of the resulting Manichean set up of South Africa, is the PAC not negating its principle of non-collaboration when it engages in this South African democracy as it legitimises this anti-black establishment? These are genuine critiques that require serious attention that go beyond simply insisting that “the Mthatha congress resolved”. However, in tackling this issue, it is important to go back to the basic documents of the PAC. In the PAC case document, Sobukwe makes the following statement:

“The Africanist reject totalitarianism in any form and accept political democracy as understood from the west” ~ Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe

At an address to PAC members on Heroes Day in 1959, Sobukwe further emphasises the Africanist call for one man one vote as one of the key fundamental demands of the Africanist movement across the continent. The question that we must ask ourselves today is: Are these two key calls of the PAC – that is political democracy as understood from the west and one man one vote- obtain in South Africa today?

My own assession is that South Africa today is a political democracy of the Western framework and that indeed this democracy operates on the principle of one man one vote. In such a situation – a situation where the South African constitution is anti-black in the way that is explained above, but at the same time operates on the principle of one of our key demands- what do we do as the PAC? Do we throw the proverbial baby out with the bath water, or do we find new ways of engaging the forces of oppression within the current conditions obtaining on the ground? Could this anti-black constitutional framework be overturned within participation in the democratic process that is given life by this very constitution, or do we operate outside of it completely? And how does operating ‘outside’ look like?

It is true that the post-94 democratic dispensation has not been kind on the PAC and its cause. But I think that we need to ask further questions here. Who is at fault for this? Is it the Constitutional framework itself or has the problem been an internal one? I ask this question with all seriousness because there is a very problematic tendency within the PAC to runaway from accepting blame for its tactical blunders. All the problems of the party always have a convenient instigator, the imperialist forces that are constantly working against the organisation. A scheduled load shedding starts during a party program: “Ahh the imperialist forces are sabotaging the party of Sobukwe”. There has been little to no reflective analysis of the situation of the party.

The parliament schedule allows for what is called constituency days, on Mondays parliament is empty save for the administrative parliamentary staff and party support staff of the various political parties represented in parliament, as MPs are expected to be out doing constituency work. It also closes about four times in the year, normally in line with university and school holidays of the country for constituency work too. How many times have structures of the party used these periods to call its parliamentary representatives to come and do their constituency work in their areas? How many times has the party moved motions in parliament that are pro the African masses? It seems to me that the organisation for the past 24 years in parliament has simply gone to parliament for the sake of being there. The last big thing that the PAC has done in parliament was to expose the arms deal scandal back in the early 2000s. Is this the inherent failure of the South African brand of democracy or political incapacity of our own cadres that we send to represent us in parliament?

There are those who argue that it is the parliamentary system itself that is the problem, and that Azania needs a revolution. It is unclear, however, what form that this revolution is to take. Will it be a mass demonstration of the masses of our people on the streets of the country, demanding for the fall of the current establishment as we saw in countries like Tunisia and Tahir Square in Egypt during the Arab Spring of 2011, or will it take the form of an armed peoples war?

The July riots of last year, 2021, in Gauteng and Kwa Zulu Natal and the high number of people who choose not to vote in the country show that the conditions are ripe for a nation-wide riot against the establishment. But the riots of last year equally showed that the vanguard movement that is to direct the actions of the masses is not ready. No organisation from the left was able to direct the energy of the masses in the July 2021 riots against the enemy. The entire left was caught of guard. Instead of fulfilling its historic role or agitation against the enemy, they entire left bloc instead chose to condemn the riots. They were too scared to look beyond Zuma. Every organisation on the left was quick to say that this is an internal ANC matter playing itself out in the streets. The RET forces are sabotaging the country so as to make president Ramaphosa weak. The PAC was sadly part of this bandwagon. It missed the opportunity to read the situation beyond Zuma.

The masses on the ground though proved much smarter and more agile than their leftitst leadership. The people on the ground without care of what were the demands of the instigators of the riots, saw an opportunity to get their hands on some of the goods stolen from them by big capital. If one looks at some of the interviews with some of the ‘looters’ that were being interviewed during that time, one would see that many of them had no idea whatsoever what the demands of the instigators where. All they saw was an opportunity to regain the ill-gotten goods of capital back to their legitimate owners, the producers of those goods themselves.

So, what we have is a situation where the masses are ready, but there is no leadership to lead them. The masses are more advanced than their leadership, to a point that they have forced it to play the historic role of white liberals. To calm the anger of black people down. And the PAC was, unfortunately, part of the bandwagon that abandoned its historic role last year and adopted the role of the white liberal. If, therefore, the PAC is to leave the parliamentary system in the hope that it is to mobilise these masses, a question that must be answered is whether the PAC in all honesty is ready and equipped for this revolutionary task. But if the July 2021 riots are anything to go by, the answer to this question is unfortunately in the negative. And we need not be afraid to admit this, if we are to chart the most correct path for our organisation moving forward, we must not be afraid to face the truth head on, to go beyond rhetoric. Even if the truth may not be kind to us. We need to acknowledge our tactical blunders for us to be able to move forward in the most theoretically acute way.

The other available option is that of an armed people’s war. The same concerns as above appear here as well. Who is to lead this war? Is the movement that is to lead this peoples war ready and equipped for the task? One of the fundamental principles in guerrilla warfare is that ihlathi lejoni ngabantu (a guerrilla’s forest is the people). Do the people of occupied Azania today genuinely see the PAC as their leader? Does the PAC enjoy the overwhelming confidence of our people as their legitimate representative? What mechanisms are there to test this theory? One of the benefits of parliamentary democracy is that it allows the organisation to approximate the level of confidence it enjoys from the populace, but indeed election results alone cannot be the only arbiter because it could be that the vast majority, even though they believe in the PAC, do not believe in the parliamentary system. But it is, nonetheless, a very important barometer to test the waters on the level of confidence that an organisation enjoys from the masses. And if historic election results are anything to go by, the PAC does not have a forest. Without a forest, is then the war a peoples war or a bunch of people who refuse to acknowledge that they have not yet convinced the masses of their position and now are arrogantly forcing those ideas upon the people? I can already hear the objectors calling out and saying ‘no you are just scared of war, you are scared of facing the enemy, the people have clearly shown that they are tired of the ANC government’. To this I say, yes, of course I’m scared of war, however, I do not think fear alone can bar one from engaging in the necessary struggle for the liberation of the nation. One needs to acknowledge their fear, dwell there and overcome that fear. It is no use to not acknowledge it. Secondly, yes again, our people are fed up with the current dispensation. However, that does not equally mean that they would prefer an Africanist Socialist Democracy as espoused by the PAC. We cannot just guess these kinds of things, we need not be afraid to convince our people. Take them with us, not pull them, but they must walk side by side with us in our march to freedom. Fanon argues that:

“In an underdeveloped country, experience proves that the important thing is not that three hundred people form a plan and decide upon carrying it out, but that the whole people plan and decide even if it takes them twice or three times as long. The fact is that the time taken up by explaining, the time "lost" in treating the worker as a human being, will be caught up in the execution of the plan. People must know where they are going, and why. The politician should not ignore the fact that the future remains a closed book so long as the consciousness of the people remains imperfect, elementary, and cloudy” (Fanon, 1963: 193).

What is needed from the organisation currently is a development of a two-pronged approach strategy. How to use the parliamentary multi-party system to the benefit of the war against the enemy outside of parliament. This can be done. The arguments for mutual exclusivity have not been able to convince me against this conviction. I am of the view that Lenin’s argument around the two-pronged approach is quite helpful in this regard.

The second important issue to tackle, whether we go the parliamentary route or abandon parliament, is the question of wither the ANC? What should be the posture of the PAC towards the ANC? There are those who argue that the ANC constitutes part of the enemy, and should be treated as such, whether in the parliamentary route or the riots/people’s war route within the PAC itself.

Those who push this line of argument seem to base their argument off two documents, the Africanist Manifesto and Franz Fanon’s text Pitfalls of National Consciousness which appears as a chapter in his book The Wretched of the Earth. The ideological foundation of this claim from the Africanist Manifesto is found in the claim made by the Africanists that the ANC is “no longer within the ranks of the liberation movement”. The argument says that the ANC in the 1958 congress sold out the African liberation movement by adopting the 1955 Freedom charter as the principal document of the ANC, replacing the 1949 program of action. I do not think it is necessary to repeat here the reasons the PAC disagreed with the Freedom Charter, as I think the reasons are well known and well-articulated in the PAC Case document and the Africanist Manifesto and Peter Raboroko’s article which appeared on the Africa South journal titled Congress and the Africanists; The Africanist Case.

What I do want to tackle here, however, is the standing of the ANC vis-a-vis the liberation movement. My argument is that the Africanist Manifesto by making the argument that ‘the ANC is no longer within the ranks of the liberation movement’ does not condemn the ANC into a position of the enemy of the liberation movement. The very next section in The Africanist Manifesto makes the following claim, which I wish to quote at length:

“These "leaders" consider South Africa and its wealth to belong to all who live in it, the alien dispossessors and the indigenous dispossessed, the alien robbers and their indigenous victims. They regard as equals the foreign master and his indigenous slave, the white exploiter and the African exploited, the foreign oppressor and the indigenous oppressed. They regard as brothers the subject Africans and their European overlords. They are too incredibly naive and too fantastically unrealistic to see that the interests of the subject peoples who are criminally oppressed, ruthlessly exploited and inhumanly degraded, are in sharp conflict and in pointed contradiction with those of the white ruling class. Citizen Toussant once remarked that: "Whenever anybody, be he white or mulatoo, wants a dirty job done, he always gets a blackman to do it." The so-called leaders after doing a dirty job, namely, seeing to it that the African is deprived for all time of his inherent right to control his country effectively; of seeing to it that whatever new social order is established in this country, the essentials of white domination are retained, even though its frills and trappings may be ripped off. This attitude has been labelled MULTI-RACIALISM by their white masters (emphasis mine)”.

There are two important points that I think are worth noting in this above long quote, the first is the Citizen Toussant quote about the black man is always sent to do the dirty job and the second is the reference at the end to white masters. The PAC acknowledges that the captured leadership of the ANC is doing the dirty job of their white masters. What does this mean? It means that the captured ANC is equally a slave like the rest of us, it is just the proverbial house negro that Malcom X refers to. But as we all know, and we are even reminded by Jay Z, that house negroes are still negroes. Captured leadership of the black class is still black and, therefore, still a slave. If one reads carefully the quote, one would note the PAC set up of the problematic. They distinguish between two forces, the alien European dispossessor and the indigenous disposed. The master and the slave. It is clear that the PAC locates the ANC sell out leaders within the ranks of the indigenous dispossessed, the slaves. The PAC acknowledges that the ANC is doing the dirty job of their masters. The ANC is not in the position of the master, it has not crossed over the line within this PAC problematic. Therefore, the argument that simply by the fact that they are no longer within the ranks of the liberation movement, they therefore, constitute part of the enemy, has no logical ground to stand on. At least from the logic of the PAC.

To take this point home. The PAC in The PAC case makes reference to the Indian minority. In that document, the PAC acknowledges that the Indian minority are part of the oppressed group of nations in Azania, however, among the Indians there is what the PAC refers to as the merchant class which is a reactionary class that has captured the leadership of Indian community in Azania. But the PAC never, makes the argument that this merchant class is part of the enemy. It acknowledges that it too is part of the oppressed nations in Azania by the white settler minority. But as the PAC further acknowledges in how the domestic powers in Azania operate, the domination of the White settler minority domestically is maintained by the enlisting of the active co-operation of the oppressed. That is, the oppressing powers will always seek active participants among the oppressed to maintain their power, this does not make those that are enlisted suddenly be part of the oppressor group and therefore, the enemy. It makes them oppressed people who simply seek their narrow interest against those of the nation. The proper definition of what Karl Marx defines as a lumpen.

The second stand that those who argue that the ANC is the enemy use is the famous chapter in the Wretched of the Earth, Pitfalls of national consciousness. In that famous chapter, Fanon warns about the National bourgeoisie stage in the former colony. He makes the claim that in the newly independent states, the National bourgeoisie is an incompetent class that is characterised by a general intellectual laziness. Fanon in that chapter correctly points out that the interests of this Native National bourgeoisie are not in sync with the interests of the nation as a whole. It is a class that is only interested in serving its own narrow interest. The Native National bourgeoisie is an inauthentic class. Inauthentic in that it sees and models itself in the image of the National bourgeoisie of the colonial ‘Mother’ country, however it does not have all the necessary preconditions that gives rise to the National bourgeoisie of the ‘Mother’ country. This Native National bourgeoisie is in a constant chase to be like their counterparts in the colonial ‘Mother’ country. An impossibility.

Because this Native bourgeois class is not interested in serving the nation, but its own narrow interest of getting rich as quick as possible, its interests become diametrically opposed to the interests of the nation. It is this base that those who are of the view that the ANC is the enemy use for their argument. It is not uncommon to find among this camp utterances such as “The ANC is treating us worse than the apartheid government”. Examples to back up this argument are not in scarcity in South Africa. We can trace the brutal treatment of our people by the ANC government since it came into power. One of the most rural provinces in the country, serving the poor masses of our people, the Eastern Cape, has become synonymous with corruption. We need not mention incidents of children having to fall into a pit toilet in school because of lack of proper sanitation infrastructure, Adries Tatane, Marikana, Xholobeni, Life Esidimeni, the list is endless. We, therefore, have material evidence that proves that indeed the ANC government’s interests are not in sync with the interests of our people. The recent national debate around Land expropriation is just another case in point. Prof Mabogo More, that great African philosopher, in an essay titled Locating Frantz Fanon in post-apartheid South Africa, lucidly shows how Fanon’s predictions about the post-independence Native National bourgeoisie makes it seem as if Fanon was analysing post-apartheid South Africa when he wrote The Pitfalls of National Consciousness. Nigel Gibson, looking at the Abahlali Basemjondolo movement has also made some similar remarks.

From this, we can safely conclude that indeed, the ANC government elite are exactly the Native National bourgeoisie that Fanon warned us against. That parasitic class that steals from the masses to fill their bellies and travel to shopping trips in Europe, and these days also Dubai in the Middle East.

Looking from this point of view, the argument that the ANC is the enemy seems plausible. But I am of the view that those who make this point seem to have read Fanon already looking for the answers they want. They read Fanon so as to validate their already preconceived ideas. Because Fanon is a big influence on Black existentialist thought, those who rigidly hold on to the reductionist class analysis are very quick to use him when he appears to be saying anything close to what they want to hear so as to go to the Black existentialist and say “see, even your Father Fanon agrees with us” (As if Black existentialist have to agree to everything that Fanon says and do not engage him as a scholar).

But if they had read Fanon with all the intellectual honesty they can master, they would quickly realise that the argument that the ANC or even the Native National bourgeoisie is the principal enemy of the people does not flow from Fanon’s argument about this National bourgeois class.

From the beginning, Fanon argues that this Native National bourgeoisie is an underdeveloped class. He writes that:

“The national middle class which takes over power at the end of the colonial regime is an underdeveloped middle class. It has practically no economic power, and in any case it is in no way commensurate with the bourgeoisie of the mother country which it hopes to replace. In its narcissism, the national middle class is easily convinced that it can advantageously replace the middle class of the mother country. But that same independence which literally drives it into a corner will give rise within its ranks to catastrophic reactions, and will oblige it to send out frenzied appeals for help to the former mother country” (Fanon, 1963: 149).

This clearly shows that this middle class is a class that is still dependent on the ‘Mother’ country, the Master. Fanon further argues that:

“Neither financiers nor industrial magnates are to be found within this national middle class. The national bourgeoisie of underdeveloped countries is not engaged in production, nor in invention, nor building, nor labor; it is completely canalized into activities of the intermediary type…The psychology of the national bourgeoisie is that of the businessman, not that of a captain of industry…Under the colonial system, a middle class which accumulates capital is an impossible phenomenon” (Fanon, 1963: 150).

What we find, therefore, is that this Native National bourgeoisie is not a bourgeoisie proper, it lacks the necessary conditions to form a national bourgeoisie. It is wholly dependent on the ‘Mother’ country. Fanon argues that “In underdeveloped countries, we have seen that no true bourgeoisie exists; there is only a sort of little greedy caste, avid and voracious, with the mind of a huckster, only too glad to accept the dividends that the former colonial power hands out to it” (Fanon, 1963: 175). He goes on further to say that:

“In fact, we know today that the bourgeoisie in underdeveloped countries is non-existent. What creates a bourgeoisie is not the bourgeois spirit, nor its taste or manners, nor even its aspirations. The bourgeoisie is above all the direct product of precise economic conditions…Now, in the colonies, the economic conditions are conditions of a foreign bourgeoisie. Through its agents, it is the bourgeoisie of the mother country that we find present in the colonial towns” (Fanon, 1963:178).

Again, Fanon’s insights on the Native National bourgeoisie exposes the invisible hand of whiteness. The principal enemy of our people. When we look at Fanon’s argument properly, it is clear that it cannot be said that the Native National bourgeoisie is the principal enemy of the people, this hides the invisible hand of whiteness, of the real bourgeoisie.

What we find in the advocates of identifying the ANC as the chief enemy is the inability to locate the real target. Fanon warns us about this too. Quoting Fanon, Mabogo More puts it nicely:

“When a violent environment is deprived of a channel through which it can express itself against its real target, it turns inward; that is, the victim turns aggressive against his own or her own people: “The colonised man will find manifest this aggression which has been deposited in his bones against his own people… You will see the native reaching for his knife at the slightest hostile or aggressive glance cast on him by another native”” (More, 2017: 228)

We must at all times guide each other towards the invisible hand of whiteness. As we have said earlier in the essay, the white master will never run out of people to use in its defence, colonialism has survived for such a long time precisely because it has managed to illicit among the oppressed agents to defend its interests. As a revolutionary party, the PAC cannot waste its time with agents, it must at all times remind the masses and its cadres that the principal enemy of the Africanist revolution is domestically represented by the Settler Herrenvolk class and internationally by the European bourgeoisie who keep using agents among us to defend its interest locally.

It is my view that the arguments that the ANC is the enemy of the revolution does not hold water on both the Africanist Manifesto stand and on the Pitfalls of National Consciousness stand as well. It is my argument that the only reason why such arguments are still made is because part of what the post-1994 moment has done is to hide the previously visible hand of whiteness. The ANC was used as a smokescreen and sadly, some among us have fallen for it.

In our engagement with the political terrain we find ourselves in, we must never tire to advocate for our line of march, not force it down the people but convince them. A people’s war is possible, but it will not succeed if it is forced on the masses by a self-proclaimed revolutionary party. I.B Tabata warns about matters of organisation. An organisation is not what it says it is, nor what its constitution or its members say it is, it is the masses, through their interaction with it that will determine what the organisation is.

We must remember Fanon’s warning: