The A.N.C. Youth League or the Invention of a South African Youth Political Organisation
by Raphaël BOTIVEAU
This issue is based on Raphaël Botiveau’s Master’s thesis “Les avatars de l’African National Congress Youth League ou l’invention d’une organisation politique de jeunesse sud-africaine (1987-2005)”. It was awarded the 2006 IFAS Best French Master’s thesis on Southern Africa. Raphaël Botiveau published an article on the same theme entitled "Les avatars de l'African National Congress Youth League. L'invention d'une organisation politique de jeunesse sud-africaine (1987-2006)." in Politique Africaine No. 104, décembre 2006.
Les Nouveaux Cahiers de l’IFAS/ IFAS Working Paper Series is a series of occasional working papers, dedicated to disseminating research in the social and human sciences on Southern Africa.
Under the supervision of appointed editors, each issue covers a specific theme; papers originate from researchers, experts or post-graduate students from France, Europe or Southern Africa with an interest in the region. The views and opinions expressed here remain the sole responsibility of the authors. Any query regarding this publication should be directed to the chief editor. Chief Editor: Aurelia WA KABWE-SEGATTI, IFAS-Research director. The text herein presented as well as back issues of Les Nouveaux Cahiers de l’IFAS / IFAS Working Paper Series are available on the IFAS website: www.ifas.org.za/research IFAS – Research PO Box 542 – Newtown 2113 Johannesburg – RSA Tel: +27 (011) 836 0561 Fax: +27 (011) 836 5850 Email: secretariatrecherche@ifas.org.za
Institut Français d’Afrique du Sud Johannesburg, 2007 (Les Nouveaux Cahiers de l’IFAS / IFAS Working Paper Series) ISSN: 1608 - 7194
Abstract
The African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) is the youth political organisation of the ANC. It was (re)invented in 1990, when the liberation movement resettled in South Africa after being unbanned. The organisation was re-launched on the basis of the South African Youth Congress (SAYCO), a group that embodied the uprising of the South African youth against apartheid during the 1980s. The ANCYL inherited its name from a previous organisation, founded in 1944 by the generation of Walter Sisulu, Nelson Mandela and Oliver Tambo who had taken it upon themselves to transform the strategies of the ANC. This led to the banishment of the ANC in 1960, and to its transformation into a liberation movement using armed struggle against the apartheid regime. Defining the very nature of the ANC as a political organisation raises a series of issues, as it seems that its present identity still differs from that of a “conventional” political party. The re-launch of the ANCYL was based on a dual legacy, which was to become the root of conflicts with its parent organisation following a dialectics of autonomy and independence. When it merged with the ANCYL, SAYCO let an important part of its independence go and the new organisation remained to be built up. The second part of the 1990s was then characterised by a willing transformation into a mass-based youth organisation. At the same time, the ANCYL’s relationship with the ANC moved towards subordination. Nevertheless, its identity remains unstable and is still for a source of internal struggles. The encounter between two generations of political activism, that of the 1980s and that of the youth who became politically aware while apartheid was collapsing, deepens these engagements. Ten years after the fall of white minority rule, the organisational transition of the ANCYL still needs to be achieved. The next National Congress of the ANC and that of the ANCYL, which are to be held in 2007 and 2008, might prove decisive in the accomplishment of such transformations. The ANCYL still intends to play a major role in the election of the ANC’s leadership and it seems that its influence proved important in the previous congresses. The rise of the Young Communists’ League (YCL), the South African Communist Party (SACP)’s youth wing, shows that the left wing of the ANC is planning to become mass-based and wants to propose an alternative to the present orientations of the organisation.
“The other second event that I remember it’s when I saw a group of students toi-toing and they were singing the song Nkululeko which means freedom which is my name. (...) That’s one thing that I’ll for ever remember. My mum (...) she explained to me why they were doing that, because I remember, at a very young age I could understand certain things.”1
1 Nkululeko MAROPE, personal interview, 22 April 2005. NB: some names were changed in order to protect the anonymity of
the interviewees.
contents INTRODUCTION PART ONE
1 15
FROM SAYCO TO ANCYL: ORGANISING THE YOUTH TOWARDS FREEDOM (1987-1996) PART TWO
31
BUILDING A MASS-BASED YOUTH MOVMENT: THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE ANCYL (1996-2006) PART THREE
45
FACE TO FACE WITH THE ANC: RELATING TO THE “MOTHER BODY” CONCLUSION
59
introduction
Foreword “THE YOUNG LIONS WHO MIAOW” FOR PIK BOTHA 1. Gaza, Soweto and Miami Beach: Giving sense to South Africa’s transformation 2. From ANC to ANCYL: Approaching the “non-definition” of the organisation 3. The ANCYL as a youth political organisation
introduction foreword - “The young lions who miaow” for Pik Botha
On the 17th of April 1993, the president of the African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL), Peter Mokaba, called on his audience in the following terms: “The young lions must not only bark and roar, but you must bite.”1 The “young lions” he was referring to were those “hordes” of youngsters that faced apartheid’s armed forces daily during the 1980s. Spontaneous, they were also very well organised within the South African Youth Congress (SAYCO), launched in 1987 and led by the same Peter Mokaba. SAYCO was then be disbanded (1991) in order to give birth to a new youth organisation: the ANCYL. More than ten years later, on the 1st of April 2005, the Mail & Guardian published a column entitled “Pik for President”. Under this title was an article reporting on a recent ANCYL decision. According to the weekly, the organisation had just nominated the late apartheid Foreign Minister, Pik Botha, as its candidate for the 2007 ANC leadership elections. It was therefore also supporting Botha as its candidate for presidency in the 2009 South African general election. ANCYL president, Fikile Mbalula, was declaring that “comrade Botha”’s understanding of international relations was surpassed only by that of “comrade President” Thabo Mbeki himself. On this first day of April, the Mail & Guardian’s statement was obviously an April fool. Indeed, it remains unlikely that a former leader of the apartheid regime could be endorsed today by the ANCYL or by any significant part of the former liberation movement2 in a run for the ANC’s leadership positions. Nevertheless, making the ANCYL look ridiculous was precisely the newspaper’s ambition. It intended to depict the organisation as submitted to the ANC and it referred directly to the recent ANCYL’s move in favour of Deputy-President Jacob Zuma. Supporting Jacob Zuma, who is now out of office and prosecuted for corruption but who was undoubtedly among the favourites to Mbeki’s succession, could then be considered as an opportunistic decision. At this stage, a question seems to come to mind naturally: how did the Youth League move from “roaring lion” to “lap dog”, as it is perceived today, reduced to serving its ”mother body” (as members of the ANCYL call the ANC)? Such “futility” is outlined by many in today’s South Africa, as suggested for instance by political analyst William Mervin Gumede who, in 2002, was mocking the “young lions who miaow”.3 1 2
3
In Shaun JOHNSON, Strange days indeed. South Africa from insurrection to Post-Election, London, Bantam Books, 1993. By “liberation movement”, we mean “those organisations that have challenged colonial regimes in their home countries. Unlike conventional political parties which normally represent sectoral interests, liberation movements often claim to represent the whole society with one clearly stated objective of liberating the people.” J. M. RANTETE, The African National Congress and the negotiated settlement in South Africa, Pretoria, J. L. Van Schaik Publishers, 1998, p.xix. William Mervin GUMEDE, “The young lions who miaow”, Focus, 27 September 2002.
2
introduction foreword - “The young lions who miaow” for Pik Botha
We argue that such a conclusion is hasty as it forgets to approach the ANCYL as a whole, and does not consider both processes of creation and transformation as experienced by the organisation between the early 1990s and today. It also consists of a reductive view, which is part of a leitmotiv portraying a depoliticised post-apartheid generation. It is furthermore a normative view that condemns a perceived lack of “radicalism” on the part of the Youth League, resulting from its support for the “right wing” and the “Mbekite” stream within the ANC. Yet such a representation makes it hard to understand why and how the present South African President slowly managed to eliminate his opponents in the race for the ANC top positions, which he did partly thanks to the support of the ANCYL.4 It seems risky to argue that a component of a political organisation is insignificant while it is able to provide a potentially crucial support base in the race to leading positions in that same organisation. This view was among the first things that Rapule Tabane, journalist at the Mail & Guardian, mentioned when I interviewed him in 2005: “It’s very influential. Most of the candidates who have been supported by the Youth League have gone on to become Premiers or president [of the ANC].” This paradox epitomises the recent evolution of the ANCYL. Although relaunched in 1990-1991, the ANCYL had originally been created in 1944 under the same name and had played a key role in the history of the ANC. Although the original ANCYL is not the focus of this study, we will need to refer to its experience in our development. The question of the ANCYL’s relationship to its mother body – the ANC – has indeed always constituted a major feature in the definition of the two organisations’ functions and identities. Before unpacking the scientific questioning on which this study is based, one needs to consider the two stages that gave birth to our reflection: i) Understanding the South African context into which contemporary ANCYL was born; ii) Defining the organisational setting in which it was created as a component of the ANC.
4
Rapule TABANE, personal interview, 25 April 2005.
3
introduction “Gaza, Soweto et Miami Beach”giving sense to South Africa’s transformation
1. “GAZA, SOWETO AND MIAMI BEACH”: GIVING SENSE TO SOUTH AFRICA’S TRANSFORMATION
At the beginning of 2001, in a packed room of the University of Cape Town, Palestinian scholar Edward Said asked members of his audience if they “knew Soweto”. He then answered for them, declaring that, today, Soweto looked more like “Miami Beach” than Gaza. What Said meant in such a provocative way was that while the living conditions in a township or in a refugee camp could still be viewed as similar, South Africa’s history had been decisively transformed during the previous decade. What was important was that black South Africans had exercised their right to self-determination. Racism had not just disappeared but had become unlawful. Attempting to understand what South Africa has become and in what context political actors are evolving today, requires first to focus on the process that made this country change from apartheid to a democratic regime. This radical transformation was expressed by Thabo Mbeki when he declared that “Yesterday is a foreign country; tomorrow belongs to us.”5 The transformation of South African politics during the first part of the 1990s were often described as part of a process of democratic transition. Nevertheless, such interpretations raise various questions: how can we consider a “return” to democracy in a country that had never experienced it before? Is it possible to reduce apartheid to an authoritarian regime that would have been dismantled through a process of democratic transition? If it seems legitimate to insist on the relative continuity between old and new regime (path dependence), a democratic transition does not allow one to think of a “radical rupture with the previous regime”, which would be based “on a completely different principle of legitimacy.”6 Johannes Rantete criticised South African scholars (such as Peter Berger and Bobby Godsell, Frederik Van Zyl Slabbert and Andre du Toit, Marina Ottaway, or G. O’Donnell and G. Schmitter) who narrowed the scope of South Africa’s transformations through the use of the democratic transition paradigm: “This is a version of African decolonisation which has as its central features an insistence on the “transfer of power”, the installation of an interim government, the election of a constituent assembly to write the constitution and the insistence to remain a liberation movement (which would complement its negotiation strategy with
5 6
Quoted in William Mervin GUMEDE, Thabo Mbeki and the Battle for the Soul of the ANC, Cape Town, Zebra Press, 2005, p.1. Ibid., p.342 & p.414.
4
introduction “Gaza, Soweto et Miami Beach”giving sense to South Africa’s transformation
liberation strategies such as mass action) to fulfil the historic mission of liberating all the people of South Africa.”7 It thus proves crucial to also refer to the decolonisation paradigm in order to embrace the historical specificity, which is also African, of South Africa. From the first Dutch settlement in 1652 onwards, from British colonisation to apartheid, all these different and, at the same time, singular destinies had at least one characteristic in common: the exclusion of natives on racial bases. The apartheid regime indeed was not invented ex-nihilo but set as a result of many historical developments. 8 It is in such a historical perspective that the ANC was born on the 8th of January 1912 and followed a course often similar to that of other anti-colonial movements. Political actors’ adherence to the paradigm of decolonisation can obviously be ideologically motivated. But they also underline the originality of the South African experience, as proven for instance by the definition of apartheid as a “colonialism of a special type”, in 1969, at the Morogoro Conference.9 Some interpretations insisted on the fact that the “new” South Africa was not “fully original”.10 Apartheid society was indeed transformed into a society that is socially – and therefore racially – stratified. The Agreement, in November 1993, which marked the end of apartheid was sometimes assimilated to an “elite transition” and a “deviation from the liberation movement mandate”.11 Such a political scenario was described as a “transition through transaction”12, exchanging political power for white economic hegemony. After mentioning these different conceptions, we now need to concentrate on identifying the ANC as a political organisation, within the transformations of the South African political order. It is indeed from this “global”13 movement in transition and in relation to it that the ANCYL initially emerged. 7 8
9 10 11 12 13
J. M. RANTETE, The African National Congress and the negotiated settlement in South Africa, Pretoria, J. L. Van Schaik Publishers, 1998, p.xii. See Mahmood MAMDANI, “La réponse aux critiques de Mahmood Mamdani”, Politique africaine, n°73, March 1999, p.204-211, p.211. On the issue of « post-colonial » continuities, see Achille MBEMBE, De la postcolonie. Essai sur l’imagination politique dans l’Afrique contemporaine, Paris, Karthala, 2000. SACP, The Road to South African Freedom, 1962, in “Political And Ideological Basis Of The PYA And The Post-Apartheid NDR Conundrum(s)”, A Discussion Paper For Young Communist League Policy Conference, 2005. Philippe GUILLAUME, Nicolas PEJOUT, Aurelia WA KABWE-SEGATTI, Dir., L’Afrique du Sud dix ans après. Transition accomplie ?, Johannesburg, Paris, IFAS-Karthala, 2004, p.7. Patrick BOND, Elite Transition, From Apartheid to Neoliberalism in South Africa, London, Pluto Press, 2000, p.3. Johannes RANTETE, Hermann GILIOMEE, “Transition to Democracy through Transaction?: Bilateral Negotiations between the ANC and NP in South Africa”, African Affairs, Vol. 91/n°365, Oct. 1992, p.515-542. We will sometimes use the expression “global ANC” to consider the organisation as a whole and in relation to its other components, i.e. the ANCYL and the ANCWL (ANC Women’s League).
5
introduction From ANC to ANCYL: Approaching the “non-definition” of the organisation
2. FROM ANC TO ANCYL: APPROACHING THE “NON-DEFINITION” OF THE ORGANISATION
When the ANC was “unbanned” in February 1990, it was faced with two major challenges: i) building internal structures that would partially recover those of the UDF14 ; ii) merging the “exiles”, including MK members, and the “inziles” (UDF affiliates and political prisoners). Several questions arise when considering the identity of the liberation movement when in exile: What became of it when exile was over and when it could operate legally? Can one assimilate the ANC to the conventional “parties” identified by political studies as the “normal” actors of democracy? One must remain cautious in raising such issues as the ANC itself refuses being “reduced” to a political party in order to remain different, more representative and therefore more legitimate than its competitors within the political arena.15 In South Africa, the ANC was described by some as a “dominant party” evolving into a “dominant party system”.16 In this regard, it could also prove useful to refer to Mohamed Salih’s view about movement-party systems, where the ANC would represent a “movement party” relying on the ethos of the liberation ideology.17 Faced with the challenge of defining the ANC as being or not a political party, we prefer to consider it, in reference to William Schonfeld18 and Jacques Lagroye’ approach, as a “political organisation”. In other words, an organisation specialised in competition for political positions, relying on resources and action capacities within a context of organised competition.19 Such an approach can seem problematic although it makes the use of “organisational sociology” possible, which considers the organisation as specifically political while enabling a distinction as well as a comparison between different types of organisations belonging to different spheres.
14 The United Democratic Front, founded in 1983, was the largest anti-apartheid coalition ever created and it gathered most
of the South African civil society organisations.
15 Tom LODGE, personal interview, 12 April 2005. 16 Hermann GILIOMEE, “South Africa’s Emerging Dominant-Party Regime”, Journal of Democracy, Vol.9/n°4, October
1998, p.128-142.
17 M. A. Mohamed SALIH, ed., African Political Parties. Evolution, Institutionalisation and Governance, op. cit., p.18. 18 William R. SCHONFELD, “Les Partis politiques. Que sont-ils et comment les étudier ?”, in Yves MENY, Dir., Idéologies,
partis politiques et groupes sociaux, Paris, Presses de la FNSP, 1984.
19 Jacques LAGROYE, avec Bastien FRANÇOIS et Frédéric SAWICKI, Sociologie politique, Paris, Presses de la
FNSP, Dalloz, 2002, p.226-227.
6
introduction From ANC to ANCYL: Approaching the “non-definition” of the organisation
Finally, defining the ANC as being a “political party”, as being dominant or as being a movement might not be that crucial. The ANC today is a governing organisation involved in a multiparty competitive system. Its history, its identity as a liberation movement as well as the absence of any solid alternative, still ensure its political hegemony. It is important though to note that it remains an ambiguous party / movement while evolving in an open and liberal political game. There is no universal definition of political parties and underlining the ambiguous identity of the ANC also implies to consider understanding the organisation for itself, in order to analyse its internal dynamics through the scope of a “social relation”. 20
3. THE ANCYL AS A YOUTH POLITICAL ORGANISATION
Scientific questioning It is precisely in light of the above non-definition that we will set out our problematic. The continuing uncertainty regarding the nature of the ANC indeed constitutes a given which, we think, is fundamental in understanding the organisation, as well as in apprehending the South African political arena. The relation between the ANC and its “youth wing” lies in this ambiguity. In the historical context of the transformation of South Africa, considering the organisational change experienced by the ANC, we intend to answer the following question: “How did the ANCYL take part in the political transformations of the 1990s, within a global movement seeking a new identity and in the context of a redefinition of its relationship to it?” The first part will focus on the conditions in which the ANCYL was (re)launched and will study the way in which such a context determined its identity and relationship to its parent organisation. The second part will show the ANCYL was built and how it was organisationally reshaped while the political arena gradually “normalised”. Finally, the third part will examine the way in which the relationship between the ANCYL and the ANC evolved and the main characteristics of their interactions.
20 Michel OFFERLE, Les partis politiques, Paris, PUF, 1997.
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introduction The ancyl as a youth political organisation
Hypothesis As shown earlier, our reflection begins with the fact that the ANC is too often defined as a “conventional” political party. As underlined previously, the 1990s were a time of deep change for South Africa as well as the ANC as a political organisation that had been a liberation movement for more than thirty years. Based on “objective” tools of political analysis, considering local context and the subjective representations of the movement, such a categorisation is not obvious. We also noticed that the ANCYL, which was born in that context, was being neglected. As a youth organisation, it was reduced to a subaltern component of the ANC, it being also often compared, probably unfairly, with the 1940s ANCYL. As a result, its role and influence, substantial since 1991, were diminished while its analysis suggests more complex developments. As opposed to such views, we argue that the ANCYL carries its own political, challenged and “geometrically” unsettled significance as would be the case for any organisation. Its identity and activities are also distinct from those of the ANC. As such, they are significant and deserve deeper investigation, which can conversely prove helpful in understanding the ANC. The concept of “invention”21, as suggested by our title, intends to challenge the common view within ANC collective representations and organisational culture22, such a view arising when “ANC Youth League” is being mentioned. The “unbreakable thread”, reffered to by Julie Frederikse, potentially linking the “Class of ‘44” to the “Class of ‘87” within the Congress’ tradition23, certainly exists. But it cannot mask the fact that “youth” political involvement in 1944 differs from that of the SAYCO generation of 1987, in terms of historical as well as social contexts. In order to distinguish both eras, we will refer to the organisation founded in 1943-44 as the “old” ANCYL, and to that launched in 1990-91 as the “new” ANCYL. In the history of the ANC, the Youth league is a legend that rhymes with “radicalism” and “militancy”. As such, it plays an “iconic” function. But the old Youth League is more respected than it is worshiped by militants of the new one. Whatever their age, the latter identify more with the political involvement of the 1980s youth and with SAYCO among 21 Eric HOBSBAWM, Terence RANGER, ed., The Invention of Tradition, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press,
1983, p.2.
22 One can define here the “culture” of an organisation as a whole set of “beliefs, ideas and practices” shared by a group
of people who belong to that organisation. Raymond SUTTNER, “Culture(s) of the ANC”, paper presented at the International Conference on “Re-Conceptualising Democracy and Liberation in Southern Africa”, 11-13 July 2002, Continental Hotel, Windhoek, Namibia, p.4. 23 “The Unbreakable Thread. Non-Racialism in South Africa”, Book Review by Charles CARTER, Journal of Southern African Studies, Vol.1/n°2, June 1991, p.355-359.
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introduction The ancyl as a youth political organisation
other youth formations, than with militants of the old ANCYL. During the period of time considered here the Youth league has successively embodied different parts and experienced deep transformations. The age category of the young people on whom we focus, as given by the organisation itself, ranges between 14 and 35 years old. However, one must bear in mind a factor that is often overlooked: “youth is nothing but a word�. Age is not a biological given but a social construct.24 As Tom Lodge puts it, a crucial difference regarding youth political involvement emerged in the 1980s, as opposed to the 1940s:
4HERE WAS THIS NEW SENSE OF GENERATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS THE IDEA OF BEING YOUNG HAD CHANGED THE IDEA OF THINKING ABOUT YOUTH AS A SEPARATE SOCIAL CATEGORY HAD BECOME INmUENTIAL 4HE 9OUTH LEAGUE IN THE S WAS A GROUP OF EXTREMELY SUCCESSFUL PROFESSIONAL MEN 4HEY WEREN T VERY YOUNG EITHER 4HEY ALREADY CONSTITUTED WHAT PASSED FOR AN ELITE 7ALTER 3ISULU WHO WAS THE FOUNDER OF THE 9OUTH LEAGUE WAS PRACTICALLY OLD ENOUGH TO BE A GRANDFATHER v25
The notion of “generationâ€? is not only chronological but also constitutes a sociohistorical category, a “social generationâ€? as expressed by Karl Mannheim.26 Furthermore, in South Africa, the idea of being “youngâ€? has more to do with political interpretations than with sociology. What came to be known as “youth politicsâ€? was on the one hand associated to apocalyptic clichĂŠs, referring to a “lost generationâ€?, and on the other hand to the notion of liberation, as shown for instance by “positiveâ€? notions such as “comradesâ€?, “freedom ďŹ ghtersâ€? or “young lionsâ€?.27 The relationship between “youthâ€? and “politicsâ€? has been the subject of a fair amount of studies as has been, for example, that between gender and politics. Their link was often approached through socialisation and politicisation, which will not draw our full attention to at this stage, although we will refer to the work of Annick Percheron.28 We will also refer to the writings of Anne Muxel who studied the transmission of political values between generations. We will also mention her notion of a “political moratoriumâ€? on youth.29 24 Pierre BOURDIEU, Questions de Sociologie, Paris, Les Éditions de minuit, 1984, p.144. 25 Tom LODGE, personal interview, 12 April 2005. 26 Jean CRETE, Pierre FAVRE, Dir., GĂŠnĂŠrations et politique, Paris, Laval, Economica, Presses Universitaires de Laval,
1989.
27 Jeremy SEEKINGS, Heroes or Villains ? youth politics in the 1980s, Braamfontein, Ravan Press, 1993, p.xi-xii. J. et J.
Comaroff, “RÊexions sur la jeunesse, du passĂŠ Ă la postcolonieâ€?, Politique africaine, n°80, dĂŠcembre 2000.
28 Annick PERCHERON, La socialisation politique, Paris, Armand Colin, 1993. 29 Anne MUXEL, L’expÊrience politique des jeunes, Presses de la FNSP, 2001.
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introduction The ancyl as a youth political organisation
However, in Africa and elsewhere, youth participation in politics has been understudied even if the role of young people proved to be important during the 1990s, both in terms of instrumentalisation by and autonomisation from political regimes.30 One tendency is to marginalise the political experience of young people as well as their role in society. In South Africa, the end of apartheid led to the portrayal of a new generation, as shown for instance in TV programmes such as Yizo Yizo (1998), broadcast by the SABC. It portrayed a frustrated youth, hit by unemployment and subjected to multiple forms of violence. Such a daily life is also familiar to millions of street kids in South African townships.31 A reality that contrasts deeply with what was supposed to be an era of liberation and development. The post-apartheid generation would be “lost” and its members would belong to a “dangerous class”. Its education occurred in the middle of violence, in a street life that mainly consisted in fighting the apartheid State and would have resulted in fatal desocialisation.32 If it seems obvious that the conditions of politicisation changed with the collapse of the well identified enemy that was apartheid, it would nonetheless be simplistic to conclude on the global depoliticisation of young people. According to the authors of Youth in the New South Africa, it is not just the youth but the whole of South Africa as a country that is presently experiencing a crisis deriving from the fall of the previous regime.33
ORGANISING THE YOUTH POLITICALLY: “SOCIO-ORGANISATIONAL” APPROACH, REPRESENTATIONS AND ORGANISATIONAL IDENTITY Few have studied youth political organisations and the participation of young people within these. In this regard, Nathalie Luyckx raises the following question: “As soon as the youth issue is dealt with as a specialised regrouping structure within a party, what is the nature of the relationships between “young people” and “adults” in this party?”34 She argues that political studies have neglected such organisations as these were considered insignificant in the understanding of party life. Following a Bourdieusian analysis, she adds that the very existence of youth structures express a domination based on age and on the political skills
30 For a recent contribution, see J. ABBINK, et I. VAN KESSEL, Vanguards or Vandals. Youth, Politics and Conflict in Africa,
Leiden, Brill, 2005.
31 See Zinhle Carol MDAKANE, No Way Out : Story of an X-street kid, Durban, University of Durban-Westville, 2001 and
Mamphela RAMPHELE, Steering by the stars. Being young in South Africa, Cape Town, Tafelberg, 2002. G. STRAKER, “From victim to villain : A ‘slight’ of speech ? Media representations of township youth”, South African Journal of Psychology, Vol.19/ N°4, 1989, p.20-27. 33 Frederik VAN ZYL SLABBERT, Charles MALAN, Hendrik MARAIS et alii, ed., Youth in the New South Africa. Towards Policy Formulation. Main Report of the Co-operative Research Programme: South African Youth, Pretoria, HSRC, 1994, p.15. 34 Nathalie LUYCKX, Les partis politiques et l’organisation de la jeunesse à travers trois structures politiques de jeunesse dans le Rhône: MJS, RPR-jeunes, FNJ, Master’s thesis, sous la direction de Paul BACOT, IEP de Lyon, Septembre 1998. 32
10
introduction The ancyl as a youth political organisation
required by the “professionalisation” of politics. Against such a prejudice, she underlines that a youth structure is – among others – revealing of party as well as political field characteristics. Without postulating a “subaltern” position of young people within youth political formations, we will show that the ANC’s inclinations toward dominating the ANCYL are sometimes successful while they also face resistance in other instances. The issue of independence and autonomy vis-à-vis the parent organisation represents a major feature of the interaction between both organisations and reveals also an important aspect of the ANCYL’s identity. Our study will not focus specifically on the issue of political activism or that of political involvement35, although we will deal with both in the second part hereof, which focuses on the building and functioning of the ANCYL. Regarding methodology and considering that the ANC is a political organisation and the ANCYL a youth political organisation, we refer to the “socio-organisational” approach used by William Schonfeld and Jacques Lagroye in particular. This approach makes it possible to distinguish this organisation as it remains a structure informed by its political nature, but also to compare it with other kinds of associations.36 Without agreeing directly with Roberto Michels who stated that an organisation necessarily implies oligarchy, we will consider the role of elites and focus on authority relations (streams of influence, codes of conduct, internal cohesion, decision making processes, resources and so forth.). “The combination of such internal and external features proves to be a crucial factor for us to understand a party and its internal power structure.”37 In other words, using Michel Crozier’s hypothesis, this study focuses on power relations between the different levels of the organisation. Crozier distinguishes between “the level where decision making stabilises inside an organisation depends, on the one hand, on the difficulty of hierarchical connections and, on the other hand, on the difficulty of face to face authority relations, as well as on what is imposed by the outside world.; it settles down at the highest level compatible with a reasonable efficiency of the organisation.” 38 Behaviours, representations and modes of expression39 will also be examined sometimes, as indirect references to the identity of a political organisation and the individuals who compose it and are shaped by it. Although, individual experiences, will of course be studied, individuals within the organisation are not considered as nomads. The organisation 35 Jean-Luc DURAND, Engagement et défection dans les organisations politiques de jeunesse: Etude sur les jeunes socialistes 36 37 38 39
et les jeunes communistes, op. cit. William R. SCHONFELD, “Les Partis politiques. Que sont-ils et comment les étudier ?”, op.cit. Ibid. Michel CROZIER, A quoi sert la sociologie des organisations ?, Paris, Seli Arslan, 2000, p.19. Jean-François BAYART, Achille MBEMBE, Comi TOULABOR, Le politique par le bas en Afrique noire. Contribution à une problématique de la démocratie, op. cit., p.48.
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introduction The ancyl as a youth political organisation
is not viewed as an aggregate of individuals (individualisme méthodologique) 40 but, in Durkheim’s words, as a “social fact” or, in other word, as a “collective actor” 41, the latter then being necessarily the basis of collective actions and mobilisation characterised by the tension between interest and ideology.42 Coming eventually to the question of attributing a “character” or an identity to an organisationit is important first, at methodological level, to take into account the appropriate definition of an organisation, which is shaped collectively and individually. In doing so, ideology and programmes of action thus become significant elements but also need to be related to “structural and economic conditions and to the way in which they inform the organisation’s answer to certain situations”, creating opportunities as well as limitations for action.43
Fieldwork and use of sources Regarding secondary sources, the study is based on various surveying techniques that have naturally been limited by MA time constraints. Some works quoted in our bibliography dealt with the ANCYL at the turn of the 1990s (e.g., Tom Lodge44, Monique Marks, Johannes Rantete, Jeremy Seekings and Ineke Van Kessel), but no study was entirely focused on the actual organisation. Most references to the new ANCYL consist of extracts and are often journalistic. The absence of major sources on the topic reinforced our idea that it was both useful and relevant to deal with the phenomenon over a wider time period, in order to reach a better perception of its evolutions and to produce a more complete analysis. Most of the secondary sources available on the ANCYL refer to the 1940s’ organisation. It is indeed referred to in most works and articles on the history of the ANC (as written by Francis Meli, Saul Dubow, Edward Feit, Holland Heidi and Dale T. McKinley, among others). However, here again, the most important works on the old ANCYL are mainly limited to the writings of Robert Edgar and to unpublished manuscripts we found at the Universities of the Witwatersrand and Cape Town.
40 Raymond BOUDON, “Individualisme et holisme dans les sciences sociales”, in Pierre BIRNBAUM, Jean LECA, Dir., Sur 41 42 43 44
l’individualisme. Théories et méthodes, Paris, Presses de la FNSP, 1986, p.45-59. Jacques LAGROYE, et al., Sociologie politique, op. cit. Daniel GAXIE, “Économie des partis et rétribution du militantisme”, RFSP, Vol.27/n°1, February 1977, p.123-154. Saleem BADAT, Black Student Politics. Higher Education and Apartheid from SASO to SANSCO, 1968-1990, op. cit., p.9-10. Tom LODGE, “The ANC and the development of party politics in modern South Africa”, The Journal of Modern African Studies, vol.42/n°2, June 2004, pp.189-219. This article results from a recent investigation on the ANC and offers useful insights on the new ANCYL.
12
introduction The ancyl as a youth political organisation
A fair amount of writing exists on youth politics in South Africa regarding the 1980s’ mobilisation (e.g. as written by Jeremy Seekings, Monique Marks, Tom Lodge, Jonathan Hyslop, Colin Bundy, Shaun Johnson, Lawrence Schlemmer and Ineke Van Kessel). The beginning of the 1990s also witnessed a renewed interest in the field of youth and, as a result, produced studies and reports intending to direct the new government’s policies (David Everatt and Elinor Sisulu or Frederik Van Zyl Slabbert, Charles Malan and Hendrik Marais). Some of the writings referred to on post-1990s ANC were also used, whether in French, e.g. the article of Marianne Séverin and Pierre Aycard45, or in English, e.g. the works of Johannes Rantete, Geoffrey Hawker, Tom Lodge, Raymond Suttner, William Mervin Gumede, Stephen Ellis and Tsepo Sechaba or Marina Ottaway. Finally, on the political transformations of the 1990s in South Africa, in French, the works of Dominique Darbon, Denis-Constant Martin, Sandrine Lefranc, Jean Copans and Roger Meunier, Philippe Guillaume, Nicolas Péjout and Aurelia Wa Kabwe-Segatti were used and in English, we refer among others those of Elisabeth Wood, Patrick Bond, Hermann Giliomee, Dirk Kotzé, Heribert Adam and Frederik Van Zyl Slabbert. The primary sources were first collected in the South African History Archives –SAHA, at the University of the Witwatersrand. Two collections of SAYCO and ANCYL archives enabled us to gain a better understanding of the transition period between both structures. The SAYCO collection covers a period running from 1987 to 1990 and the ANCYL compilation the years 1990 and 1991. The discovery of these archives proved precious as these consisted of official documents, as well as internal papers (minutes, reports, mail etc.). They also contained the archives of the ANCYL’s journal Horizon. Contemporary documents were also accessed through members of the new organisation. Our primary sources are ultimately oral, the result of two dozen interviews conducted in Johannesburg and Cape Town, during April and early May 2005. Because of time constraints but also out of a methodological choice, “qualitative” interviews only were conducted. First with scholars and journalists and then with older members of the ANCYL who gave a more global and distant view of the organisation’s evolution. However, the core of our interviews focused on present members of the ANCYL at all structural levels (national, provincial, regional and local). Finally actors belonging to several other youth organisations interacting with the ANCYL, such as members of the South African Students’ Congress – SASCO, the 45 Marianne SEVERIN, Pierre AYCARD, “Qui gouverne la “nouvelle” Afrique du Sud ? Elites, réseaux, méthodes de pouvoir
(1985-2003)”, in Philippe GUILLAUME, Nicolas PEJOUT, Aurelia WA KABWE-SEGATTI, Dir, L’Afrique du Sud dix ans après, Transition accomplie ?, op. cit., p.17-51.
13
introduction The ancyl as a youth political organisation
Congress of South African Students – COSAS – and of the Young Communist League – YCL were interviewed. Participant observation was also conducted at a SASCO branch meeting where most of the participants were SASCO members, although some ANCYL and YCL members were also present. Visits to Luthuli House (Johannesburg), the headquarters of both the ANC and the ANCYL, as well as to various regional and provincial structures, completed the study with a more “realistic” overview of the way the organisation concretely operates.
Study layout The first part is devoted to the organisational transition, marked by the disbanding of SAYCO and the birth of the ANCYL. The first half of the 1990s was a tense period for South Africa, as the 1980s uprising was still being pursued while political negotiations were taking place. Such tensions were also the reasons for the serious clashes between both youth organisations and the ANC. In the second part, some of the main challenges the ANCYL was faced with in the period of organisational construction that followed are envisaged. They are linked to the construction of a mass-based organisation, to decision-making processes and to ideology. They result in the organisation taking on multiple identities, resulting in a series of conflicts between opposed streams around issues of power and ideology. The third part then focuses on the way in which the relationship between the ANCYL and its parent organisation is partly determined by history, dating back to the 1940s and the era of the former ANCYL whose legacy is ambivalent, both a source of pride and distanciation. The study then closes on the relations of dependency linking, in an unstable geometry, the ANCYL and the ANC. The influence of the youth organisation within the ANC as whole remains of importance: we argue that the nature of the ANC-ANCYL relationship is the defining element of ANCYL’s identity.
14
part one
From SAYCO to ANCYL: organising the youth towards freedom (1987 -1996) CHAPTER 1
SAYCO, THE YOUTH SECTION AND THE ANC: THE WAY TOWARDS MERGING (1987-1990)
CHAPTER 2
THE “YOUNG LIONS”: FROM UNGOVERNABILITY TO NEGOTIATIONS (1990-1996)
From SAYCO to ANCYL...
A youth at the vanguard of the 1980s struggle
INTRODUCTION – A YOUTH AT THE VANGUARD OF THE 1980s STRUGGLE The 1976 uprising marked the beginning of a long fall for the apartheid regime. Names such as those of Hector Peterson and Solomon Mahlangu are here to remind us that thousands of young people gave their lives in order to free South Africa. The ANC quickly became aware of the meaning of such a new blow of contestation. From Robben Island and Lusaka, its leaders first called for unity within mobilisation, before Oliver Tambo, in his famous speech, called upon the youth to “make South Africa ungovernable”. At the same time, the organisation resettled in the country and made its presence known through impressive guerrilla operations. Nevertheless, unity was mostly an internal product. It came through the actors who created the UDF in Mitchell’s Plain, on the 20th of August 1983. The UDF was a response to Afrikaner nationalism and racial exclusivism through adhesion to the Freedom Charter and the utopia of an egalitarian society based on participatory democracy and social organisation “from the bottom”.46 The adoption of the Freedom Charter clearly marked an adhesion to ANC values. The symbols, slogans and colours of the UDF were those of the Congress. Moreover, the first presidency of the federation was led by ANC veterans: Albertina Sisulu, Oscar Mpetha and Archie Gumede. The second part of the 1980s was marked by a crucial acceleration of the course of events. On the 3rd of September 1984, Sharpeville was at the centre of violence spreading throughout the Vaal Triangle and harshly repressed by security forces. Although this uprising was largely spontaneous, it was only a spark. Expressing a structural crisis, it was to be organised, sustained and changed into a rebellion. By July 1985, the Government decreed a state of emergency and, as a result, banned several organisations and arrested thousands of people. It is within such a context that SAYCO emerged and the ANCYL was born in 1990. The South African youth played a major role in conducting that uprising. In the first part hereof, we have chosen to cover a period running until 1996 so as to reflect the continuing state of organisational “insecurity” into which the new ANCYL was initially immersed, such a period reflecting also the global context of violence linked to the slow end of apartheid and to the “militarisation” of the youth fighting it. 46 Ineke VAN KESSEL, “Beyond our wildest dreams.” The United Democratic Front and the transformation of South Africa,
Charlottesville, Londres, University Press of Virginia, 2000, p.2-4. See also Tom LODGE, Bill NASSON, et alii, All, Here, and Now: Black Politics in South Africa in the 1980s, op. cit.
16
From SAYCO to ANCYL...
A youth at the vanguard of the 1980s struggle
1. SAYCO, THE YOUTH SECTION AND THE WAY TOWARDS MERGING (1987-1990) 1.1 THE
THE
ANC:
YOUTH WITHIN THE UNITED DEMOCRATIC FRONT: SAYCO
Just like the post-Soweto uprisings had been the product of high school pupils, the 1980-81 mobilisation and the 1984 uprising owe a lot to students and Congress of South African Students (COSAS)47 in particular. COSAS was a national organisation, well-rooted locally, and from its creation (1979) onward, it had called for the creation of a national youth organisation. This initiative was adopted by the UDF and led to the formation of SAYCO a few years later. Members of COSAS who had left the educational system played a major part in the creation of youth congresses48 all over South Africa, as from 1983. These had aligned on the values of the ANC and covered the youth as a whole: students, young workers and unemployed youth. These congresses were then gathered in regional structures such as the Cape Youth Congress (CAYCO). The basic unit of the UDF was, as a rule, composed of a “civic organisation”, a women’s organisation and a youth congress. As a result of this overall process, SAYCO was launched on the 28th of March 1987. More than 200 delegates secretly gathered at the University of the Western Cape, in a founding congress which resulted in the adoption of the Freedom Charter and a constitution claiming full representation of the South African youth. Referring to the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), this Charter acknowledged the leading role of the black “working class”. The new youth organisation aimed at politicising all sectors of the youth and channelling its energies in the struggle. But it first promoted a “free, unitary, non-racial and democratic South Africa.”49 Its colours, its slogan: “Freedom or death – victory is certain!” as well as its president, Peter Mokaba, rooted SAYCO in the ANC. Peter Mokaba was indeed a member of the underground ANC, the MK and the SACP. He had served on Robben Island, which was at the time a genuine “university” of the ANC, where veterans such as Sisulu and Mandela used to “convert” young recruits trained into Black Consciousness to Charterism. SAYCO adopted a loose federal structure in order to include its 1 200 affiliated youth congresses and nearly 500 000
47 Tshediso MATONA, Student Organisations and Political Resistance an South Africa : an Analysis of the Congress of South
African Students, 1979-1985, Dissertation submitted to the University of Cape Town in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Honours in Political Studies, February 1992.
48 For instance the Soweto Youth Congress (SOYCO), the Mamelodi Youth Congress (MAYO), the Kagiso Youth Congress
(KAYCO) or the Port Elizabeth Youth Congress (PEYCO).
49 Constitution of the South African Youth Congress, March 1987.
17
From SAYCO to ANCYL... SAYCO, the youth section and the ANC...
members. The organisation developed a wide conception of youth, which was not considered as a “class� but as a “sector� of society, a non-homogeneous yet differentiated category. The youth was between 15 and 34 years old and was ideologically conceived as a “struggling� social category. SAYCO’s main campaigns were the following: the “Save the Patriots campaign�, for the liberation of prisoners on death row, the “Freedom Charter Campaign�, in order to popularise the Charterist ideology and the “Unban the ANC� campaign. The latter campaign illustrates the fact that, just like the UDF, SAYCO felt closely related to the liberation movement. However, such a relationship is not so obvious. Indeed, if SAYCO members could feel a collective identity and membership, their encounter was not necessarily quiet and “natural�. Following its speech of the 2nd of February 1990, SAYCO quickly resolved to take an active part in the relaunch of the ANCYL, which was conceived as a crucial step in the overall endeavour to rebuild the ANC. It consisted in bringing together, within the same structure, the three streams that had been organising the youth until then, i.e. the Youth section in exile, SAYCO and the youth represented by other progressive formations.50 1.2 “SAYCO
WAS THE ANCYL�: MYTHS AND REALITIES
Nomi Nkondlo, currently Provincial Secretary of the Youth League in the Western Cape, speaks of the transition from SAYCO to the ANCYL in the following terms:
3O IT WAS A MOVEMENT FROM #!9#/ A TRANSITION YOU SEE FROM #!9#/ TO 3!9#/ FROM 3!9#/ TO THE !.#9, ;x= /UR PARTICIPATION IN THE TRANSITION OF THE 9OUTH ,EAGUE AS ) SAID WAS AUTOMATIC IN THE SENSE THAT WE WERE BRANCHES AND STRUCTURES OF THE !.# 9OUTH ,EAGUE BUT UNDER THE BANNER OF #!9#/ AND 3!9#/ BECAUSE OF THE REPRESSION ;x= &OR ME ; = THERE WAS NEVER A TIME WHERE THERE WERE ANY TENSIONS YOU SEE BECAUSE IN OUR OWN UNDERSTANDING EVEN BEFORE THE !.# 9OUTH ,EAGUE WAS UNBANNED WE KNEW DEEP IN OUR HEART;S= THAT WE ;WERE= THE 9OUTH ,EAGUE BUT WE ;COULD NOT= BE THE 9OUTH ,EAGUE BECAUSE OF APARTHEID 7E ALL WANTED TO BE NAMED THE !.# 51
While one can easily understand identiďŹ cation with a banned political movement that had become the symbol of the liberation struggle, this remark does not clarify the nature of the link between SAYCO and the ANC or its youth section. Quite clearly; the ANCYL did not 50 SAYCO, Position Paper, “Towards building the ANC Youth Leagueâ€?, 1990. 51 Nomi NKONDLO, personal interview, 20 April 2005.
18
From SAYCO to ANCYL... SAYCO, the youth section and the ANC...
exist as such, more than thirty years after its original ban. Furthermore, as the ANC was also banned, belonging to this organisation could only be idealised since any official mention of the ANC was illegal. The possibility of a direct link between SAYCO and the Youth section was also limited, although certain objectives were common to both formations.52 The Youth section was an ad-hoc creation of the ANC and it was supposed to direct the successive waves of young exiles who left South Africa after 1976. The Youth section had no representatives within the country. Within SAYCO, allegiance to the ANC was also stronger than within the UDF of which the many leaders were very eager to protect their independence.53 While the fact that so many young South Africans felt that they were members of the ANC without being members per se, is important to understand the fact that this feeling of membership to the ANC remains nonetheless an a posteriori reconstitution. Indeed, while other organisations such as COSAS and SASCO also identified with the ANC, they chose not to merge when the ANCYL was created. Such a shared feeling of belonging is also not sufficient to approach the tensions arising between SAYCO and the ANC at the beginning of the 1990s. Both structures displayed a real organisational differentiation. The Youth section of the ANC played a role in the organisational transition to come, particularly through its last leader, Jackie Selebi. But it is first with the ANC that SAYCO’s leadership dealt. They met in Lusaka at least twice in August-September 1989 and in April 1990.54 Trying to shed light on these mainly underground relations of which even the actors can hardly have had an overview, might ultimately prove a vain exercise. We can at least draw a series of interesting conclusions. SAYCO was first an independent organisation with its own organisational identity, one that was closely related to that of the ANC, but an organisation enjoying an organisational independence that would be at the centre of the transition from SAYCO to the ANCYL. In order to keep their independence, student organisations like SASCO and COSAS decided they had better refuse to merge with the ANCYL.
52 SAYCO, Executive Report, presented at 3rd CEC Meeting, 22 December 1987. 53 Neville NAIDOO, personal interview, 8 April 2005. 54 Jeremy SEEKINGS, Heroes or Villains? Youth politics in the 1980s, p.87.
19
From SAYCO to ANCYL... SAYCO, the youth section and the ANC...
1.3 THE
DISBANDING OF SAYCO: A
“PROCESS”
NOT A
“DECREE”
SAYCO’s first national congress, the organisation’s highest decision-making body, took place in Kangwane between the 13th and the 16th of April 1990. It gathered 1 800 delegates from all eleven regions and from “sister” organisations (the South African National Students Congress (SANSCO), the National Union of South African Students (NUSAS), COSAS etc.). In its opening speech, Peter Mokaba announced that he would withdraw the document proposed by the National Executive Committee of SAYCO, which dealt with the role of the organisation in the building of the ANCYL. He justified such a decision, stating that the question was of importance and had not been sufficiently discussed. This indicates a rush on the part of SAYCO’s leadership and a sharp cut from the organisation’s base. The question was therefore discussed “from the floor”. Out of eleven regions, four said they had no united position on the matter and seven agreed with the fact that if the merger was necessary, the organisation was not yet ready to proceed in such a direction. They argued that both the organisation and its members were not well prepared and wished that the organisational transition resulted from a “process” and was not accomplished “by decree”. They added that they favoured an open debate between SAYCO and the Youth section.55 The resolutions of the congress outline the “natural” link between SAYCO and the ANC, as well as the necessity to relaunch the ANCYL, in which SAYCO will play a major role.56 The negotiation process between SAYCO and the Youth section was quickly characterised by a conflict over the question of leadership within the organisation to be. As opposed to the rebuilding of the ANC, which was based on an imprisoned or exiled leadership, the construction of the ANCYL, in the absence of an external structure, required an important part for the inziles. SAYCO agreed on the principle of fusion with the Youth section but its leaders were determined to control its process. The disbanding of SAYCO was granted, as well as its political link with the ANC. At stake was the question of its organisational independence, which needed to be passed on to the new organisation. Finally, SAYCO’s leadership was granted the main positions in the Provisional National Youth Committee, which was the provisional executive committee of the ANCYL. Peter Mokaba remained President and Rapu Molekane National Secretary. The adhesion of SAYCO to the ANC had never been at the heart of the issues surrounding the transition.
55 SAYCO, Congress minutes, National Congress, Kangwane, 13-16 April 1990. 56 SAYCO Congress 1990, Resolutions.
20
From SAYCO to ANCYL... SAYCO, the youth section and the ANC...
Nevertheless, its members remained concerned about the future and, as Oscar Van Heerden puts it: “We needed to understand what monster is the ANCYL and how it would precisely operate.”57 The provisional ANCYL was officially launched on the 27th of October 1990 (Oliver Tambo’s birthday), at Orlando Stadium. Its preamble gave up the Marxist references of SAYCO, and focused on the objectives of the ANC: a democratic regime in a non-racial and non-sexist society. In order to contribute to this aim, the ANCYL was to become a mass-based youth movement. It would serve the interests of the ANC, but also those of the South African youth. These two functions were to be known as the “twin tasks” of the ANCYL: a support for the ANC, rallying the youth behind its programme, as well as “championing the general interests of South African youth” in the political and socio-economic life of the country.58 ANCYL members identified so much with the ANC and its leaders were so eager to accomplish it that the creation of the ANCYL had seemed unavoidable. There was indeed a need to be united in the face of the apartheid regime, as well as to act as one during the negotiation phase. Nevertheless, such eagerness implied that the process would be led “from the top”, depriving the youth organisation of many internal consultations. But the process was not over, as it takes time for a loose and independent federal organisation to become the unitary youth wing of a liberation movement undergoing major changes. The ANCYL would have to define itself before both the ANC and the new and unfamiliar context of negotiations with the National Party. SAYCO was not officially dissolved until the 9th of December 1991. The coexistence of both organisations would prove precious as the ANCYL could rely directly on SAYCO’s structure. However, it would also constitute a weakness as it fostered certain confusion.59 Ultimately, the creation of the Youth League and the Women’s League of the ANC as well as the absorption of its best cadres into the ANC marked the end of the UDF, which was disbanded on the 20th of August 1991.
57 Oscar VAN HEERDEN, personal interview, 3 May 2005. 58 ANCYL, Provisional Constitution and Guidelines for Code of Conduct, 1990. 59 Provisional National Youth Committee Meeting, 29 October1990.
21
From SAYCO to ANCYL... The “young lions”: from ungovernability to negotiations
2. THE “YOUNG LIONS”: FROM UNGOVERNABILITY TO NEGOTIATIONS (1990-1996) 2.1 THE
ANCYL IN THE NEGOTIATION PROCESS: SUPPORT AND CONTESTATION
Ineke Van Kessel, speaking of the 1980s, writes that the decade was a rebellion of the youth more than anything else. It was based on a strong generational consciousness, on Marxist propaganda and on broad conceptions of the armed struggle.60 The conjunction of those factors gave birth to a “struggling generation” and did not prepare its members for a negotiated settlement. In their view, the apartheid regime should be defeated by armed struggle. The “idol of the South African youth” was Chris Hani, the Secretary General of the SACP and last MK Captain, whose freedom fighters were considered as heroes. In April 1991, an extended meeting of the Provisional Executive Committee of the ANCYL noted that, since the 2nd of February 1990, the ANC had entered in a phase of negotiations that compromised certain pillars of the struggle, such as underground operation and armed struggle. It added that the ANC was obviously losing its power of initiative and that it should rely on and consult the broad mass of its members and followers in order to regain the initiative. It was suggested that the ANC should not adopt a reformist approach as opposed to its past revolutionary position. The ANCYL Provisional Executive Committee argued that the process leading to democracy should itself be democratic and that internal democracy should be a major concern.61 During that same period, the Provisional Secretariat of the ANCYL complained in a memorandum addressed to the Provisional Secretariat of the ANC, that the ANC could be intentionally restraining the rise of the ANCYL as an active political actor. The document mentioned the material obstacles the Youth League was faced with. It spoke of basic needs as regards setting up the ANCYL’s Regional Offices (unpaid rents, water and electricity bills), as well as the delay of its inaugural conference due to a lack of funding. Moreover, at the beginning of February 1991, the League only reached 108 800 members and 465 branches, as opposed to the initial aim of one million members. The memorandum questioned whether
60 Ineke VAN KESSEL, “La révolte de la jeunesse dans le Sekhukhuneland”, Politique Africaine, n°48, décembre 1992,
p.33-57, p.35.
61 ANCYL, Draft minutes of the Extended PNYC Meeting, Durban, 2-5 April 1991.
22
From SAYCO to ANCYL... The “young lions”: from ungovernability to negotiations
the fact that the ANC did not fund the ANCYL was motivated by a political will not to see the building of an autonomous Youth league, or results from global constraints.62 The document added that two solutions remained open at that stage, regarding the destiny of the Youth League: either it closed its regional offices or it led an international fundraising campaign. In such a case, the document outlined that questions would be raised concerning the funds previously raised by the ANC in the name of the ANCYL, but that had not been redistributed.63 Nevertheless, the answer of the ANC Secretary General to the memorandum does not take the Youth League’s criticism into account and recalls the leading role of the parent organisation.64 The relationship between the ANC and the ANCYL was therefore tense during the transition period. These tensions focused on hierarchy between the ANC and its youth wing and were also the result of the centralised character of decision-making within the ANC in exile. During the negotiations, their opposition was also ideological and specifically focused on issues such as the armed struggle, which the ANC abandoned in August 1990 against the will of youth organisations. The latter refused to give violence up as the government carried on using violent methods in the townships. Oscar Van Heerden recalls for instance that, at the beginning of the negotiations, the apartheid government wanted the ANC to clearly renounce armed struggle. For many young people, this was inconceivable as it would mean behaving like “Piet Retief” when he met with “Dingaan” while disarmed and was subsequently slaughtered with his men.65 Another important controversy arose around the “sunset clause” proposed by Joe Slovo in the name of the ANC. For young people, the very idea of sharing power with the enemy they had been fighting for years was unacceptable.
62 ANCYL, Memorandum to the ANC National Executive Committee, from the ANC Youth League Provisional National
Youth Secretariat, 26 February 1991.
63 ANCYL, Memorandum to the ANC National Executive Committee, from the ANC Youth League Provisional National
Youth Secretariat, 26 February 1991.
64 ANC, Reply to your Memorandum. This document belongs to the SAYCO part of the South African History Archives at the
University of the Witwatersrand. It is not followed by any precision regarding the date of its publication but it is located among SAYCO documents just after the Memorandum op. cit.
65 Oscar VAN HEERDEN, personal interview, 8 April 2005.
23
From SAYCO to ANCYL... The “young lions”: from ungovernability to negotiations
The negotiation period therefore proved a paradoxical time during which the ANC asked the youth to give up some of their modes of operation (even though violence did not decrease), while it refused to give them a significant role within the ongoing process. These youth, including the ANCYL’s new leadership, conceived themselves as participants and had clearly expressed their belonging to the ANC. There was thus no risk of dissent but rather a feeling of frustration, and as in the case of the UDF, a sensation of being marginalised in the accomplishment of the transformations initiated by them. Mobilisation did not cease however and the Youth League took important initiatives such as the national days against violence (8-10th of April 1991). The role played by the youth cannot be neglected “insofar as in political bargaining, mass action plays a considerable part.”66 But it was the ANC that led such talks. A report by Rapu Molekane to the ANCYL after a meeting between the ANC and the government in which he participated in September 1992, expresses the feeling of marginalisation mentioned above. He speaks of how strange he felt while seating face to face with the “enemy”, although his description is clearly that of a spectator and outsider rather than an actor.67 2.2 HARD
BEGINNINGS, ORGANISATION AND VIOLENCE
Apart from its relation to the ANC, one of the main preoccupations of the new ANCYL concerned the issue of organisation, which was often linked to that of violence. On the 17th of June 1992, as negotiations came to a dead end, militants of the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) probably assisted by the security forces perpetrated the Boipatong massacre. At the time, the IFP Youth Brigades (founded in 1976) were under the complete control of Gatsha Buthelezi, who often used them as a militia against the ANC.68 In Natal, this constant harassment of the ANC considerably limited the recruitment ambitions of the ANCYL. SAYCO generally interpreted violence as the product of structural factors according to the following chain of causality: its main source was founded in apartheid and government policies, which used radical rightist elements as well as groups of vigilantes69. Violence was also seen as the product of socio-economic conditions caused by racial discrimination and it was finally fed by the rivalry between the ANC, the PAC and the IFP. The initial answer
66 Lawrence SCHLEMMER, “L’Afrique du Sud dans l’ombre du passé”, in Dominique DARBON, La République
sud-africaine. Etat des lieux, Nairobi, Paris, Talence, IFRA, Karthala, MSHA, 1993, p.13.
67 Horizon, Vol.2/n°3, 1992. 68 Kumi NAIDOO, “The Politics of Youth Resistance in the 1980s : The Dilemmas of a Differentiated Durban”, Journal
of Southern African Studies, Vol.18, N°1, p.143-165.
69 Private militias and self defence units that were sometimes manipulated by the police.
24
From SAYCO to ANCYL... The “young lions”: from ungovernability to negotiations
provided by political organisations, including youth formations, to the issue of violence was the creation of Self Defence Units (SDU) and Marshalls who were supposedly unarmed and responsible before those organisations.70 Nevertheless, due to the lack of discipline and control over the latter units, the ANC and the ANCYL called for their disbandment, a demand that, however, came too late.71 A study72 conducted in Diepkloof township (Soweto) intends to trace the evolution of the violent phenomenon, which also involved the ANCYL of the early and mid-1990s. This work examines the various changes in the operational ways of Charterist organisations. In Diepkloof, these formations resorted to violence in order to resist “gangsters” attacks as early as 1986: “The issue of self-defence became a reality”.73 In the 1980s, youth violence had been directed against the State, its agents, institutions and allies. It was encouraged by the ANC and conceived as a “popular war of liberation” in order to make the country ungovernable. Violence could also be conceived as part of the psychological liberation of the oppressed subject74. Violence had been gradually extended to anyone suspected of collusion with the State, as well as within actual Charterist organisations. Methods such as “necklacing” or institutions such as “popular courts of justice” illustrate such an extension and increase in violence. Marks’ analysis is important for it argues that the increase of violence was responsible for a transformation in the quality of the youth organisation at the beginning of the 1990s. According to her, the objective of youth organisations in the 1980s, following the example of COSAS, was not only to “put the government on its knees” nor just to ensure “mobilisation”, but was also to “organise” the youth in the underground context of the state of emergency. Political education played a central part in this. Meeting with older activists and examining documents of that time confirmed that the focus was on being organised. SAYCO and the Youth League also aimed at regulating and controlling social order. Internal codes of conduct used to forbid alcohol or the use of drugs, required members to show assiduity at meetings and imposed a respectful behaviour towards female members.
70 SAYCO, Programme of Action, SAYCO 3rd National Central Executive Committee, 30 July – 1st August 1990. 71 Wilfried SCHÄRF, “Re-integrating Militarised Youth (Street gangs and self-defence units) into the Mainstream in South
Africa : From hunters to game-keepers?”, Urban Childhood Conference, Trondheim (Norvège), 11 June 1997, p.7-11.
72 Monique MARKS, Young Warriors. Youth Politics, Identity and Violence in South Africa, Johannesburg, Witwatersrand
University Press, 2001.
73 Ibid., p.44. 74
Voir Frantz FANON, Les damnés de la terre, Paris, Gallimard, 1991 (1961).
25
From SAYCO to ANCYL... The “young lions”: from ungovernability to negotiations
At the beginning of the 1990s, the problem that first arose within the ANCYL was at local branch level. The national desk was established, regional offices were being launched one after the other, but branches were still very autonomous as they used to be SAYCO’s. Monique Marks75 also refers to the generational aspect of such transformations at branch level. She speaks of “generation” in the same “social” way as does Karl Mannheim, but also to a certain extent as an “intellectual generation”.76 According to her, after the ANC was unbanned, the Diepkloof youth showed interest and wanted to belong to the organisation. A new wave of young people who were newly politicised and not linked to the past struggle joined en masse the ANCYL. Such a decision was encouraged by the new conditions of legality and by the ANC’s prestige. This often went along with the desire to become famous and improve living standards. In Diepkloof, the murder of Vuyani Mabaxa, who was killed by police forces, also played a key role at local level, as he was an important figure in the local ANCYL. What Marks outlines is the fact that as younger people joined the movement, a number of old “comrades” decided to retire. She argues that many felt excluded of the political negotiations in progress. Some of them also became involved in criminal activities as “comtsotsis”.77 Many among the new and younger members of the ANCYL began to support the ANC in an uncritical way and the “old guard” was stuck in a paradoxical position: it supported the ANC while disagreeing with its decisions and strategy. Such a transformation in the local composition of branches impacted on leadership skills, as new leaders were less able to organise campaigns and raise a clear programme of action. The democratic form of meetings remained but meetings became much more bureaucratic and began to lack the ideological debates which were familiar to 1980s militants. Nevertheless, the first aim of the new organisation was about becoming a mass-based formation. By March 1991, the ANCYL had recruited only 135 000 members, a figure which marked a sharp cut in membership in comparison with SAYCO. By May of the same year, it had 460 000 members, but only half of them were paid-up members.78 The ANCYL was officially launched on the 9th of December 1991 during the Kwa-Ndebele Congress. The congress experienced a harsh fight for leadership positions, which opposed Peter Mokaba 75 Monique MARKS, “Onward Marching Comrades: The Career Of The Charterist Youth Movement In Diepkloof”, History
Workshop, Johannesburg, University of the Witwatersrand, 13-15 July 1994.
76 Jean-François SIRINELLI, Génération intellectuelle. Khâgneux et Normaliens dans l’entre-deux-guerres, Paris,
Fayard, 1988.
77 Association of the word “comrade”, which labelled the fighting youth during the 1980s, and of the term “tsotsi”, which
dates back to the 1940s and stands for the idea of a street gangster.
78 There is indeed a difference between a “signed-up member” and a “paid-up member”. As a rule, the ANCYL is supposed
to take into account only the second category of members who paid their membership fees.
26
From SAYCO to ANCYL... The “young lions�: from ungovernability to negotiations
to his Secretary, Rapu Molekane. According to Neville Naidoo, many felt that it was time for Mokaba to give up the presidency. Rapu Molekane ďŹ nally decided not to run for the position and Peter Mokaba was re-elected, with Lulu Johnson as his Deputy-President, Rapu Molekane as Secretary-General and Febe Potgieter as Deputy Secretary-General.79 2.3 “FREEDOM
IN OUR LIFETIME�: THE
“CLASS
OF
’87�,
A GENERATION’S DESTINY
“I was born on a bench of the Luxembourg garden, in Paris, at the beginning of 1960. Of course, I was born earlier as well; and, after this fresh and luminous spring morning in Paris, I have experienced other births, some easy, other violent, but none proved as decisive as this one.â€?80 In this quote, AndrĂŠ Brink refers to how he became aware of the nature of apartheid and of his belonging to a community of oppressors. He was part of a generation that came to be known as the Sestigers. Very few young South African who grew up during the 1980s were lucky enough to be born on a bench of the Luxembourg Garden in Paris. Their ďŹ rst political awareness came while they heard the police breaking their house door, while they witnessed the arrest of one of their family members, when they were faced with tear gas or bullets repressing a demonstration or, even worse, when they faced the death of a relative. This generation is sometimes portrayed as the “class of ’87â€?, an expression which refers to the previous “class of ‘44â€?, that of the founding fathers of the former ANCYL. During interviews, interviewees were asked to remember their ďŹ rst “politicalâ€? event. One interviewee for instance told the following story referring to 1985 when she was fourteen years old:
h4HAT S HARD 4HAT S REALLY HARD BUT ) CAN THINK OF x IT S NOT A POLITICAL EVENT BUT ) CAN TELL YOU OF ONE IMPORTANT EXPERIENCE 7E WENT AND PROTESTED AGAINST THE FACT THAT WE HAD BEEN FORCED TO LEAVE CLASSES GO ON ALMOST LIKE A DAY LONG HOLIDAY BECAUSE $IANA THE PRINCESS $IANA AND #HARLES WERE GETTING MARRIED 4HIS WAS AT A BOARDING SCHOOL AND WE WERE VERY MUCH A CONSCIENTISED GROUP OF STUDENTS READING A LOT OF POLITICAL LITERATURE WHICH WE USED TO GET FROM UNDERGROUND LISTENING A LOT TO THE TAPES FROM THE !MANDLA CULTURE AND SYMBOL WHICH WAS THE CULTURAL GROUP OF THE !.# OUTSIDE THE COUNTRY WE USED TO
79 Neville NAIDOO, personal interview, 8 April 2005. At the time, he was a member of the regional executive of the ANCYL
in the Western Cape.
80 AndrĂŠ BRINK, Sur un banc du Luxembourg, Paris, Stock, 1983, p.24. Abstract translated from the French edition.
27
From SAYCO to ANCYL... The “young lions�: from ungovernability to negotiations
LISTEN TO IT UNDERNEATH OUR PILLOWS AT NIGHT AND SHARE THESE MATERIALS x !ND SO WHEN WE WERE TOLD WE WERE NOT GOING TO SCHOOL BECAUSE WE RE GOING TO ALL SIT ON 46 AND WATCH 0RINCESS $IANA AND 0RINCE #HARLES WEDDING CEREMONY WE BASICALLY PROTESTED AGAINST NOT THAT WE WANTED TO BE IN CLASS BUT WE FELT THAT THERE ARE MANY OTHER REASONS WHY WE SHOULDN T BE IN CLASS v 81
Others remember how they protested in similar conditions and how they were encouraged to do so by older pupils and students. Buti Manamela remembers when ANCYL activists burnt the municipality building of his community during the negotiation period.82 Nkululeko Marope thinks of those days when she used to go with her mother to ANC Women’s League meetings.83 Leebogang Maile reminisces about the 1994 elections84 and Philip Musekwa the liberation of Mandela, in November 1990.85 The last four examples quoted are given by young people who, today, are between twenty two and twenty ďŹ ve years old. They are presently active in several organisations and the event they can think of as being a founding event is often close to that of their elders. However, the common context of their politicisation cannot hide the fact that their political socialisation happened under very different conditions. The involvement of the younger individuals started in the 1990s, close to the end of apartheid. In the 1980s, awareness was not so much a choice as a situation often determined by conditions applicable to all. It may be paradoxical but the contexts of politicisation might also have been more numerous than today. Some members of the “class of ’87â€? gave up politics. They sometimes left the ANCYL because of the age gap and became “ordinaryâ€? members of the ANC. Some also felt their time was over, often as a result of the “disillusionâ€? we noted regarding the negotiation process. The past they relate to is often about struggles and it is not unusual to pick up a form of nostalgia when they speak about the “good old daysâ€?. That period was difďŹ cult and many lost relatives and friends, were jailed and lived underground. Oscar Van Heerden, for instance, remembers how he used to sleep in different places every single night, how he was exhausted psychologically as well as physically, and how, despite all this, he ended up being caught by the security forces.86
81 82 83 84 85 86
Anonymous interviewee, personal interview, 4 May 2005. Buti MANAMELA, personal interview, 14 April 2005. Nkululeko MAROPE, personal interview, 22 April 2005. Leebogang MAILE, personal interview, 12 April 2005. Phillip MUSEKWA, personal interview, 13 April 2005. Oscar VAN HEERDEN, personal interview, 8 April 2005.
28
From SAYCO to ANCYL... The “young lions�: from ungovernability to negotiations
Some of them decided to lead a “normal lifeâ€?, to start a family and experience material comfort. Such options were, of course, not given to most of the 1980s activists, and those we refer to generally attended tertiary educational institutions and attained leadership positions within the ANCYL. Thanks to that, they managed to ďŹ nd skilled jobs and earn acceptable wages. Most of them told me they were “ready to serveâ€? and it is always an option that the ANC could ask them to join the government. Indeed, within the ANC, there is a conception that one belongs to a collective body. As Lulu Johnson puts it:
h9OU SEE ONCE YOU BECOME A MEMBER OF THIS ORGANISATION CALLED THE !.# AND AGAIN THE SLOGAN GOES AS FOLLOWS hONCE AN !.# ALWAYS AN !.#v YOU CAN GO TO BUREAUCRACY YOU CAN GO TO BUSINESS BUT THIS ORGANISATION WILL RECALL YOU WHEREVER YOU ARE )T DOES THAT FOR A SIMPLE REASON ONE IT KNOWS THAT THESE ARE ITS LOYAL MEMBERS TWO THESE ARE MEMBERS WHO HAVE BEEN TRAINED BY THIS VERY MOVEMENT 4HIS MOVEMENT HAS INVESTED IN THESE INDIVIDUALS COLLECTIVELY v87
Other militants of the 1980s remained politically active. In today’s ANCYL, they hold leading positions and will probably lead a political career in the ANC and in politics, at provincial or national level, as Members of Parliament, in government or in the South African diplomatic corps, at one stage or another. The young people of the 1980s did therefore constitute a “social generation�. Members of the latter did not only share the same chronology and the same places, they became a generation in the sense that they took part in “the common destiny of a same social and historical unit�, and developed a “generational consciousness�.88 One encounters the same phenomenon in other historical contexts of deep social transformation. The Palestinian Intifada, for instance, provides a contemporary example comparable to what happened in South Africa.89 When Oscar Van Heerden was asked: “Is the new generation depoliticised?� he answered that his generation was once named the “lost generation�, but for “other reasons�. According to him, there are still enough young people today for the ANCYL to remain active. The problem would seem to lie rather in the fact that the youth are “depoliticised� on a greater scale, in the sense that political awareness and involvement are less important than during his era.90
87 Lulu JOHNSON, personal interview, 20 April 2005. 88 Quoted in Colin BUNDY, “Street Sociology and Pavement Politics : Aspects of Youth and Student Resistance in Cape
Town, 1985�, Journal of Southern African Studies, Vol.13, N°3, April 1987, p.303-330, p.305.
89 See for instance Laetitia BUCAILLE, Gaza : la violence de la paix, Paris, Presses de la FNSP, 1998. 90 Oscar VAN HEERDEN, personal interview, 8 April 2005.
29
From SAYCO to ANCYL... The “young lions”: from ungovernability to negotiations
The second part will now focus on the “new” ANCYL. Starting in the mid-1990s, the new ANCYL is now rooted in the context of a normalised political arena, and in a “standardisation” of its own functioning as an organisation.
30
part two
Building a mass-based youth movement: transformation of the ANCYL (1996-2006) CHAPTER 3
THE ENDEAVOUR TO “MODERNISE” THE ANCYL
CHAPTER 4
UNITY AND DISSENT: THE “CHURCHES” OF THE ANCYL
Building a mass-based youth movement... the endeavour to “modernise” the ancyl
3. THE ENDEAVOUR TO “MODERNISE” THE ANCYL
3.1 AMBITIONS
OF NUMBERS AND ESTABLISHMENT
The issue of numbers gives rise to a series of problems from the very start. The count of members varies so much according to the period surveyed and the various interlocutors interviewed, that it is difficult to determine membership with any clarity. The gap between the numbers put forward in 1998 and those of 2004 is indeed revealing. The official data shows a leap from 119 88391 to 507 998 members.92 Yet it appears that between 1998 and 2001, the number of members had in fact declined from 119 883 to 102 230.93 According to the same documents, however, the total number of branches did not cease to increase between those three dates, from 776 in 1998, to 1010 in 2001 and to 2194 in 2004. According to these numbers, and the impressive break they suggest, the Youth League would have thus become a mass-based organisation in three years. The ANCYL even claims it is today the biggest South African political organisation with up to 800 000 members, a figure that is twice as important as the ANC base which is around 450 000.94 Considering the precedent of SAYCO, and for a population of over 40 million inhabitants, these numbers may seem large; the only reservation being that they could in fact be even larger seeing the electoral results that saw the ANC collect over 2/3 of the ballots in all three national general elections. The national figure of half a million members thus seems rather doubtful, just as it is doubtful that the largest province in terms of constituents, Limpopo, would have increased its membership from 17 000 to 179 000 in three years. The debate on members’ numbers is important for at least two reasons. It concerns first of all the representation of the ANCYL’s branches during the National Congress, the highest decision-making body that convenes every three years. The congress discusses and orients the policy of the organisation, before electing a new National Executive Committee whose President, Secretary-General and Treasurer are the most important members. The different branches are represented proportionately to their size; indeed, they all send two delegates for their first hundred members, as well as one delegate for every other 50 members.
91 92 93 94
ANC Youth League, Organisational Report to 21st Congress, 1998-2001. ANC Youth League 22nd National Congress, 2004 Organisational Report. ANC Youth League, Organisational Report to 21st Congress, 1998-2001. M. MGIBISA, “Big brother steps in”, Mail & Guardian, 21 December 2006.
32
Building a mass-based youth movement... the endeavour to “modernise” the ancyl
Let us consider now with more precision membership numbers in the Western Cape Province which is a medium-sized province as far as ANCYL membership is concerned. Representing less than 10% of the total South African population, the ANC has less members there than in any other province, due to the predominance of the Coloured electorate in particular. According to the organisational report referred to previously, ANCYL membership increased in that province from 7 466 members in 2001 to 35 490 members in August 2004. However, when asked about the number of adherents in the Western Cape, the provincial Secretary-General of the ANCYL, upon verification, declared that there were 14 390 members in July 2004.95 The contradiction between these figures reveals a difference of almost 50% percent. Another interesting element is that ANCYL members who are over 18 years of age are encouraged to adhere to the parent organisation. Such a move seems logical since one of the constitutional functions of the ANCYL is to mobilise the youth behind the ANC. A second consequence of ANC membership emerges nonetheless: without evoking the spectre of ‘infiltration’, which would carry little, meaning in the present balance of political powers between the two organisations, it is reasonable to think that the ANCYL could use its members to carry weight in the decisions of the ANC. This consequence is not quite as logical as it seems, as the Youth League does not usually give particular voting instructions when the ANC meets. Furthermore, the delegates chosen by the branches of the ANC to represent them are not necessarily part of the ANCYL. Nevertheless, one can assume that ANCYL official orientations, such as when it comes out in favour of a particular candidate for the presidency of the ANC, could influence the vote of delegates affiliated to both. Moreover, according to Rapule Tabane, ANCYL members who are also ANC members are often amongst the most active members and, sometimes, hold leading positions in the parent organisation, which would often put them in a position where they can be delegated.96 As such, this ambiguous situation could have consequences in two opposite directions: a more extensive subordination of the ANCYL to the ANC or a larger influence of the league on its parent organisation, which would go as far as carrying weight in internal voting. The key element that could tip the members of the ANCYL from one tendency to the other depends, in the end, on the balance of political powers between the two organisations.
95 Nomi NKONDLO, personal interview, 20 April 2005. 96 Rapule TABANE, personal interview, 25 April 2005.
33
Building a mass-based youth movement... the endeavour to “modernise” the ancyl
What is important, ultimately, is that if the number of ANCYL members is indeed increasing – and this point out the vitality of the organisation since 2001 – the uncertainty on the exact figures is maintained by the organisation itself. The actual membership figures are without a doubt an important issue, on which all the main players insist, but concerning which assessments diverge. It is, however, rather improbable that the ANCYL would boast more members than the ANC, as argued by some of its members and leaders. This vagueness might also aim at galvanizing “the troops,” and asserting the League as the massive and militant – and therefore credible – representative of the South African youth, in an effort to place itself as leading organisation in relation to its rivals/allies that are, as we will see, SASCO and the Young Communist League (YCL), the latter having been created in 2003. 3.2 THE
STAKES OF
“DEMOCRATIC
CENTRALISM”: A HIGHLY STRUCTURED POLITICAL
ORGANISATION
Member discipline is a crucial aspect for any organisation. Some of its traits favour democracy. During a meeting of a SASCO branch, we were able to observe, for example, the maturity of the participants who were all under 25 years old. Most of them also belonged to the ANCYL, and all respected very precise codes of conduct: limited speaking time, order of interventions, ordered debates, etc.97 But discipline can also be a factor limiting debate: it is, in the words of Roberto Michels, the “iron law of oligarchy” which leads to the monopolisation of the role of militants by their delegates, elected cadres of the party. For Michels, organisation rhymes with oligarchy. In the ANCYL, as in the ANC, ‘democratic centralism’ (a notion we owe to Lenin) is a mode of operation that is both proclaimed and operational. Democratic centralism means that in both National Congresses, the Executive Committee or the National Working Committee takes decisions for the proper functioning of the organisation. These committees are also meant to participate in bottom-to-top decision-making, although top-to-bottom logic generally prevails. Democratic centralism is often justified by practical imperatives. It can however hamperdebates in the organisation. This is precisely what an ex-member of the ANCYL Executive Committee deplores. Recalling her activist years in the student and youth movements in the 1980s, she explains that her move to the ANCYL was a shock due precisely to this organisational “culture” into which she had matured:
97
SASCO Branch General Meeting, UCT, 19 April 2005.
34
Building a mass-based youth movement... the endeavour to “modernise� the ancyl
) THINK THAT THE CULTURE OF DEBATE IN THE !.#9, IS VERY LIMITED HAS BEEN VERY LIMITED FOR A LONG TIME AND IT S SOMETHING THAT CAME WITH THE GENERATION ABOUT YEARS AGO )T CAME WITH THE GENERATION THAT RE LAUNCHED THE !.#9, 4HE CULTURE OF DEBATE THAT YOU WOULD lND IN STUDENT ORGANISATIONS IS SIGNIlCANTLY DIFFERENT FROM THE KIND OF CULTURE THAT YOU WILL lND IN THE !.#9, x 4HERE S ALWAYS BEEN IN THE !.#9, AN EMPHASIS ON THE LINE THERE IS A POSITION A MAINSTREAM POSITION WHICH IS OFTEN SUMMARISED BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE ORGANISATION 3O YOU CAN DEBATE BUT THE SPACE FOR A GENUINE A GENUINE ROBUST DEBATE WHOSE OUTCOME MAY BE ANOTHER DECISION IS LIMITED IN COMPARISONv
Concerning internal democracy, one must also distinguish between national and provincial structures. For Tom Lodge, “provincial caucuses and branch membership have considerable independence in reality because it’s so difďŹ cult to supervise them, but when it comes to policy and key decisions, (...) it’s concentrated to the top.â€?99 Another means by which to discipline the members of an organisation is through interest, and what Daniel Gaxie calls the “remuneration of militancyâ€?100. Logically, one may expect this aspect of material ‘remuneration’ to be limited in youth-based political organisations that, generally, do not have at their disposal important resources. At resource level, ‘remunerations’ come therefore mainly from a ďŹ nancial mode that instigates critique, both from within and outside the actual organisation. While in the middle of the 1990s the ANCYL still collected funds from international donors, these sources gradually dried up. The ANC itself being unwilling or unable to ďŹ nancially support the organisation and membership fees being minimal, the ANCYL turned to a private investment fund: Lembede Investments (ironically named after the ďŹ rst and charismatic president of the ANCYL). Its treasurer conďŹ rmed that the ANCYL was trading on the stock-market and that this was indeed its primary source of funds 101. Lembede Investments has important interests in the mining, forestry, ďŹ nancial services, real estate and telecommunications sectors. This investment fund has been the subject, in the last few years, of a number of ďŹ nancial scandals. The personal enrichment of certain members of the ANCYL has been brought to light, such as the case of Lunga Raymond Ncwana, whose rise in the business world seems partly to result from his involvement with the ANCYL of the Western Cape.102 Andile Nkuhku, present member of the National Executive Committee, has also been implicated in a corruption case in the attribution of a
98 99 100 101 102
Nandi Khumalo, personal interview, 4 May 2005. Tom LODGE, personal interview, 12 April 2004. Daniel GAXIE, â€œĂ‰conomie des partis et rĂŠtribution du militantismeâ€?, op. cit. Phumezo MQINGWANA, personal interview, 26 April 2005. “ANC Youth League in dodgy new dealâ€?, Mail & Guardian, 28 January 2005.
35
Building a mass-based youth movement... the endeavour to “modernise” the ancyl
forestry market.103 In 2004, Lembede Investments would have generated between 3 and 5 million Rands in profits. Moreover, Lembede Investment was not the first business attempt of the Youth League. In May 1997, its leaders had already founded the National Youth Trade and Investments Corporation, of which the Board of Directors included at the time the likes of Kirro Kinana (Deputy Secretary-General of the Youth League), and Pemmy Majodina (Treasurer of the ANCYL). That year, the consortium put in a tender to build two Staterun prisons for the youth in Mpumalanga. The project was, however, abandoned following a scandal.104 The ‘remuneration’ of fidelity can also take on other forms, such as political promotion. In the case of the ANCYL, it concerns, for example, the possibility of naming some of its members in governmental organisations for the promotion of youth interests, such as the National Youth Commission (NYC) or the Umsobomvu Youth Fund (UYF). But it has to do mostly with the composition of ‘young MP’ lists presented to the ANC every five years within the framework of national, provincial and local elections. 3.3 THE
LIMITS OF ORGANISATION: WHAT IDEOLOGY FOR THE ANCYL?
Collective mobilisation is sometimes based on notions of individual interest and profit, but it is also largely the product of ideas. Political enterprises are indeed ideological enterprises, in the sense that their very raison d’être is also the defence and promotion of ideas. The ANCYL has recently been elected to the presidency of the World Federation of Democratic Youth. This organisation is of communist tendency, but the ANCYL also has a seat in the International Union of Socialist Youth, which promotes social-democracy and the ‘third way’. In a long 2004 speech taking stock of his three mandates, Malusi Gigaba reminded his audience of the organisation’s affiliation with the “founding fathers’ of the ANCYL and its links with the ANC. He explained the necessary adaptation to the new conditions of democracy – a duty that had constituted the major undertaking of the ANCYL since 1994. He violently condemned – at last – the “opportunistic tendencies” of certain members of the far left who want to transform the ANCYL into an instrument against the ANC (a reference to the YCL).105 The report of the congress also firmly condemned the recent general strike orchestrated by COSATU as an act of insubordination designed to overthrow the government. Just like Peter Mokaba and Fikile Mbalula, the leaders of the ANCYL are often firmly anticommunists. 103 “Allegations Threaten Forestry Privatisation”, Business Day, 8 July 2002. 104 W. WA KA NGOBENI, “Inside the ANC Youth League’s business empire”, Mail & Guardian, 5 March 2004. 105 ANCYL, “Political Report of the President, Malusi Gigaba, to the 22nd National Congress of the African National Congress
Youth League”, Johannesburg, 19 August 2004.
36
Building a mass-based youth movement... the endeavour to “modernise” the ancyl
However, a comparison between Malusi Gigaba, Peter Mokaba and Fikile Mbalula reveals significant nuances. Born in 1971, Gigaba was the least charismatic of the three. A technocrat trained in political science and a graduate of the University of Durban-Westville, he had a habit of putting his audience to sleep with long and generally bureaucratic speeches. Somewhat in the line of Mbeki, Gigaba preferred individual interactions to great mass meetings. Unlike his predecessor and successor, he preferred being called “president” rather than “comrade”. In sharp contrasts to him stands Peter Mokaba, a renowned orator and a popular and populist leader. Born in a Limpopo township in 1959, he had been involved in the 1976 Soweto Uprising, before being sentenced to six years in prison in 1982. After his release, he had become the leader of the youth within the UDF. Fikile Mbalula was famous for his “meteoric rise to the presidency of the ANC Youth League”106. Some of his traits evoke Peter Mokaba while his age (he was born in 1971) makes him the last representative of the 1980s generation. Coming from a Free State farming family, he seeks to project the image of a lively and radical league, able to mobilise the youth of the country. A newfound radicalism was aspired to as evidenced, for example, in the violent attacks by the ANCYL on Tony Blair and its clear-cut positions against Robert Mugabe’s regime. On this topic, it is important to underline, the ANCYL most probably reflects the opinion of a large part of its members who live in rural areas where land issues are central. The ideology of the ANCYL naturally still rests on that of the ANC: promotion of democracy, anti-sexism and anti-racialism. The Youth League currently applies, for example, a minimal quota of 40% women at all levels of the organisation – a figure superior to that applied by the ANC, but which remains inferior to the proportion of women present in the organisation. In the absence of a homogenous or specific ideology, and even if the ‘liberal’ or ‘centrist’ vision (as regards socio-economic policy in particular) has become dominant in both the ANCYL and the ANC, it is the capacity to mobilise and represent the South African youth as a whole that constitutes the ANCYL’s desired and declared creed and identity. For Mbalula, the organisation needs to make its voice heard on issues that concern youth, such as unemployment and poverty. The problem of the Youth League then relates to some form of ‘schizophrenia’, which is characteristic of the ‘twin tasks’ evoked above: how to mobilise the youth behind the ANC while championing its own interest, which will automatically imply an opposition to some of
106 “President Profile”, ANC Youth League.
37
Building a mass-based youth movement... the endeavour to “modernise” the ancyl
the policies of the ANC Government. To resolve this problem, the ANCYL has thus shifted from a ‘liberationist’ to a ‘developmentalist’ approach. It switched from fighting against the State to co-operating with the government. This co-operation found its formal consecration with the establishment of three institutions since 1994: - the National Youth Commission (NYC, 1996): a governmental body responsible for studying the implementation of youth policies; - the Umsobomvu Youth Fund (2001): a Fund offering financial opportunities to young entrepreneurs; - the South African Youth Council (SAYC): a civil society organisation gathering the different youth organisations. The Mbalula’s presidency seems to forecast greater involvement of the ANCYL in the youth-related socio-economic domains. As such, Rapule Tabane underlines that the new president visits the campuses of different provinces almost every month in order to promote the activity of the ANCYL and fight against financial exclusion that has become a crucial matter in education.107 However, while the ANCYL’s positions on the deracialisation of rugby and other sports are justified and undoubtedly represent real concerns, its support of the ambiguous position of the government on AIDS is problematic, considering the impact of the pandemic on the youth. Yet the ANCYL very quickly sensed the extent of the AIDS crisis, despite the fact that Peter Mokaba, who himself probably died of the disease, later rallied Mbeki’s controversial position. Generally, the problem of the ANCYL remains that, while it wishes to include all ideologies, represent all youth and fight on all fronts, it ends up creating a confusion that is not necessarily favourable to its recruitment strategy. Moreover, while challenging the allegations and inquiries relating to the depoliticisation of the youth,108 the Youth League has in fact fostered distance from politics. Claiming to come closer to the concerns of today’s young South Africans, it promotes a “youth culture” made of kwaito music, fancy cars and consumerism. The extravagant expenses spent on the celebration of its sixtieth anniversary illustrate this.109 The “lifestyle” section of its website confirms the point. Consumer society is nevertheless still inaccessible to the majority of ANCYL members.
107 Rapule TABANE, personal interview, 25 April 2005. 108 ANC Youth League Statement on the State of the Youth Survey, 22 June 2005. 109 Wisani WA KA NGOBENI, “Big bash hangover”, Mail & Guardian, 3 June 2005.
38
Building a mass-based youth movement... unity and dissent: the “churches” of the ancyl
4. UNITY AND DISSENT: THE “CHURCHES” OF THE ANCYL 4.1THE
PROGRESSIVE YOUTH ALLIANCE: VOLUNTARY ‘MEMBERSHIP CONFUSION’?
The Progressive Youth Alliance (PYA) appears at first glance as a “tripartite minialliance”. It unites the ANCYL, the Young Communist League (YCL), the two student organisations SASCO and COSAS, as well as other, mainly religious, associations. These organisations are coordinated by the ANCYL and engage in common actions on a punctual basis. However, the PYA is not alike the tripartite alliance, which joins the ANC, the SACP and COSATU, the latter being indeed a governmental coalition that has led the country since 1994, and which concurs on a common governmental programme. The constitution of the ANCYL acknowledges the principle of dual membership with non-hostile organisations. The possibility of multiple loyalties partly explains the fact that the ANCYL, like the ANC, is often described as a “Big Church”. Furthermore, all these organisations adhere to the National Democratic Revolution programme promoted by the ANC. Nomi Nkondlo, Western Cape ANCYL Secretary-General explains that “we’ve got several memberships, multiple memberships”. She is herself a member of the ANCYL, the Women’s League, the ANC, the YCL and the SACP. When I finally asked her whether she felt closer to the SACP or the ANC, she answered: “I feel both in the sense that my induction into politics is through the ANC, and then I got to understand the politics of the communist party.” 110 One of the primary meanings of the PYA is therefore still linked to the ANCYL’s desire to embrace as much of the South African youth as possible, without distinction of ideology while also to the detriment of the latter. The very term of ‘membership,’ in fact, lends itself to a double understanding, playing both on the idea of ‘adherence’ and ‘belonging.’ During our first conversation with Oscar Van Heerden, he cleared the confusion by explaining that “we just put on different caps, on Monday evenings I’m a Youth League member and I’m in the meeting, talking as a Youth League, on Wednesday or Thursday evening I’m a SASCO person.”111 Needless to say, ‘adherence’ necessarily implies ‘belonging’ as soon as the two organisations in question are in conflict.
110 Nomi NKONDLO, personal interview, 20 April 2005. 111 Oscar VAN HEERDEN, personal interview, 8 April 2005.
39
Building a mass-based youth movement... unity and dissent: the “churches� of the ancyl
The National Congress of 2004 had been marked by strong reprimands against the left wing of the organisation, and the ANCYL even played its part as a governmental ‘watchdog’ by, as we have seen, chastising COSATU for its general strike. It was the report of the Secretary-General of the organisation (and current President of the ANCYL) that launched the attack against COSATU, but it appears that the report was violently contested by an important number of delegates present at the Congress. They argued for the right to divergence within the tripartite alliance, and demanded from the leaders of the ANCYL to stop using a terminology that was “hostile to the working class.â€?112 Less than a year later, a communiquĂŠ from the National Bureau of the ANCYL announced that the latter supported the June 2005 COSATU strike and that Fikile Mbalula would march along with the made union leaders in Johannesburg.113 This change in position, operated by the same leaders who, less than a year earlier, had been ďŹ rmly opposed to COSATU, thus seems to point to the existence of a certain control from the movement’s base over its elected cadres. 4.2 CASTING
DOUBTS ON THE HEGEMONIC ASPIRATIONS OF THE ANCYL
In 1992, after a few years of discussion, the Executive Committee of the ANCYL decided to set up branches at university campuses, where SASCO had until then represented the student supporters of the ANC. With this move, the Youth League broke the agreement it had initially concluded with SANSCO (that became SASCO in 1991). This agreement stipulated that the students who were members of the ANCYL would join the student organisation. In return, SANSCO had to make sure that its members would participate dynamically in the activities of the Youth League. Thereby assured of preserving a ‘monopoly’ over student campuses, SANSCO was meant to organise ‘forums’ the status of which remained vague, but did not double the activities of the student organisation.114 One interviewee recalls about that period:
h7HEN THE DEBATE AROSE WE HAD THE FEELING WITHIN 3!.3#/ IN PARTICULAR THAT WE WERE MEMBERS OF THE !.#9, WE HAD AN ALLIANCE WITH THE !.#9, AS AN ORGANISATION AUTONOMOUSLY WE WERE MEMBERS OF THE !.# AND THAT WE HAD A TASK ALL OF US COLLECTIVE TO BUILD A STRONG AND DEMOCRATIC YOUTH MOVEMENT AROUND THIS COUNTRY 4HE FEELING IN 3!.3#/ WAS THAT WE VE GOT #/3!3 AND 3!.3#/ IT S THEIR RESPONSIBILITY TO ENSURE
112 Rapule TABANE, “ANC youth back Cosatu’s cause�, Mail & Guardian, 27 August 2004. 113 ANC Youth League, “ANC Youth League joins COSATU stay-away�, 27 June 2005. 114 SANSCO, Letter from SANSCO Secretary General, Moss Sekhu, to the attention of ANC Youth League Secretary General,
Rapu Molekane, 28 February 1991.
40
Building a mass-based youth movement... unity and dissent: the “churches� of the ancyl
THAT IN FACT THE IDEAS THE VALUES WHICH ARE LED BY THE !.# ARE UNDERSTOOD ARE INFORMED ABOUT AND ACCEPTED AND INTERNALISED BY THE STUDENT COMMUNITY THAT THERE WAS NO NEED TO ESTABLISH !.#9, BRANCHES ON CAMPUSES FOR THAT REASON 9OU SEE FOR ME THAT IS NOT THE ISSUE OF THIS DEBATE 4HE ISSUE OF THIS DEBATE WAS IN MY VIEW THE SENTIMENT AT THAT TIME AND A SENTIMENT THAT HAS ALWAYS BEEN THERE AMONG SOME IN THE MOVEMENT THAT IN PARTICULAR 3!3#/ AND #/3!3 ARE TOO RADICAL AND WE RE TOO INDEPENDENT SPOKE CRITICALLY SOMETIMES OF THE 9, POSITION WHICH IS CORRECT 3!3#/ DID SPEAK CRITICALLY OF SOME OF THE 9OUTH LEAGUE POSITIONS OPENLY ENGAGING ONE ANOTHER AND THAT WAS THE FEELING v115
The ANCYL’s decision to set up shop on campuses was thus visibly motivated by the political ambition to control the student faction of the “Youth Alliance,â€? and it was seen as a form of betrayal. This is all the more true as SANSCO, just like COSAS, sought to maintain its complete independence when the ANC returned to South Africa – it could have melted into the ANCYL, but it chose not to. Moreover, the ANCYL’s decision could only be harmful in terms of political results. It was obviously detrimental to SANSCO, but also for the ANCYL itself, since it would, at best, overtake the student organisation, and, at worst, divide their forces. That choice was even more absurd considering the fact that campuses, many of which still have a white majority, are particularly difďŹ cult zones to ‘conquer’ for congress-afďŹ liated organisations. A second element was to precipitate the tensions between SASCO and the ANCYL and have even more resonance. In 1999, League President Malusi Gigaba decided, successfully, to compete for a seat in the National Parliament. His decision violated the constitution of the ANCYL, which required from its President to be a “full-time member.â€? When he sought to amend the constitution in his favour during the Congress of Bloemfontein (2001), a majority of the delegates opposed his motion. He was ultimately forced to abandon his parliamentary position in order to devote himself entirely to the Youth League. At the Congress of Bloemfontein, the internal challenge went in fact much further than a simple opposition to the amendments sought by the President. Indeed, when Gigaba presented himself for a third mandate, a ‘revolt’ exploded, led by ex-members of SASCO, David Makhura and Mahlengi Bhengu. This group accused the president of the ANCYL of being responsible for the decline of the popularity and inuence of the organisation. In the end, Gigaba was re-elected by a slight majority, after having depicted his adversaries as anti-Mbeki extreme leftists, and following a vote that was contested by his rivals as unfair.116 115 Anonymous interviewee, who then held an important position in the national structure of the ANCYL, personal interview,
4 May 2005.
116 William Mervin GUMEDE, “The young lions who miaow�, op. cit.
41
Building a mass-based youth movement... unity and dissent: the “churches” of the ancyl
4.3 THE YOUNG COMMUNIST LEAGUE: EMERGENCE OF AN ALTERNATIVE TO THE ANCYL? On the 13th and 14th of December 2003, in accordance with the decision of the 11th National Congress of the SACP (2002), five hundred young communists participated in the (re)-birth of the Young Communist League (YCL). The ancestor of this organisation, banned in 1950, included in its ranks personalities such as Govan Mbeki (who had also been a member of the ANCYL), Joe Slovo and Esther Barsel. The leading body of the new YCL comprises students, unemployed, young workers and union activists. Its positions are diverse and sometimes contradict those of the ANCYL, its ally in the PYA: on Black Economic Empowerment (BEE), for example, the YCL asserts its opposition to the fact that it benefits primarily the elite. On the question of Zimbabwe, it condemns the regime of the Zanu-PF that has “lost that sense of revolution”. On the issue of AIDS, it affirms that the pandemic has become the principal problem of the country, and that the government should accelerate the distribution of anti-retroviral drugs.117 The YCL dreams of a socialist South Africa defined in Marxist-Leninist terms.118 When I asked Buti Manamelo what he meant by proclaiming about the “socialist” future of his country, he explained that it meant free provision of health care and education to all, universal access to land, electricity, water, etc. Such a discourse, in today’s South Africa, has a strong subversive potential, especially when it is not upheld by the ANC. According to Manamela, the YCL has approximately 15 000 members aged between 14 and 28, and recruits on average about one thousand activists per month. However, the main challenge facing the organisation remains its financing that still comes primarily from its membership fees and individual contributions.119 For Pamela Masiko, member of both the ANCYL and the YCL, the latter’s recruitment efforts compete directly with that of the former. Indeed, while SASCO and COSAS target a limited category of potential recruits (school and university students), the YCL does not make any distinction, even though it tries, logically, to concentrate on the “labouring” youth. Being a member of both organisations is not contradictory, but belonging to the YCL implies adhering to an ideological pattern that differs significantly from the dominant ideology in the ANCYL.
117 YCLSA, Re-launch of the Young Communist League, 17 December 2003. 118 YCLSA, National Re-launching Congress, Volume 2: Discussion Documents, 12-14 December 2003, Vaal Technikon. 119 Buti MANAMELA, personal interview, 14 April 2005.
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Building a mass-based youth movement... unity and dissent: the “churches” of the ancyl
Tensions between the ANCYL and the YCL came to the fore in August 2004, during the 22nd Congress of the ANCYL that marked the end of the Gigaba era and sought to elect a new president. An official delegation from the YCL was invited by the ANCYL. The situation became slippery when a rumour floated that the YCL was attempting to take control of the Executive Committee of the ANCYL. Yet the YCL had explicitly declared that it would not present candidates to the election in its name, although it did add that it would not deter its members from taking such initiative on an individual basis.120 A member of the YCL, Sabelo Nkhulu, did compete for the position of Secretary-General with Sihle Zikalala, while an ex-leader of SASCO presented himself for the position of Vice-President. In his report, the Secretary-General and future President of the ANCYL declared that the organisation had been subjected to “unprecedented” attacks from the communists before the congress. Sabelo Nkhulu ended up loosing in the election, but according to Pamela Masiko, the result was contested and the ballots had to be recounted.121 The voting issue in the national conferences of the ANCYL is interesting. For Oscar Van Heerden, it is not necessary to rig the election in order to win it. The key to success is rather in the preparation of the delegates before the vote. Their position is first of all informed by the one they hold from their respective provinces. It appears for instance that the national leadership of the ANCYL had sought to dissolve its Western Cape Provincial Executive Committee because it supported Sabelo Nkhulu and came closer to the YCL. The ANCYL’s leadership also places important sums gained on the market, in the purchase of food, drinks, tee-shirts, plane tickets etc. It appears that these questionable (although not literally corrupt) methods of creating “favourable” conditions are also used to carry weight in the voting pattern the procedure of which remains nonetheless ‘democratic’. Beyond its relation to the ANCYL, the YCL is also part of the SACP’s effort to consolidate and expand its popular base. The SACP membership has doubled since 2002 and it reached 40 000 members in 2006, partly as a result of the YCL initiative.122 Its mission is to rally the youth behind the party by infusing them with socialist ideology. The 12th and most recent Congress of the SACP, held in Durban in April 2005, approved an important resolution: the creation of a commission in charge of evaluating the possibility for the party to present its own list in the next general elections. This decision is critical in the sense that it presents, for the first time, the possibility for the SACP to place itself as a direct electoral rival
120 Ibid. 121 Rapule TABANE, “Gigaba bashes left”, op. cit. 122 “SACP membership doubles between 2002 and 2006”, SAPA , 21 May 2006.
43
Building a mass-based youth movement... unity and dissent: the “churches” of the ancyl
of the ANC – although it should be highlighted that it does not imply a break from the ANC or an immediate change in the balance of power. This option also seems unlikely to happen in the near future. But this orientation was defended energetically by the partisans of the YCL who wanted the SACP to adopt a much more independent position vis-à-vis the ANC.123
123
Vicki ROBINSON, “Not now – but not never”, Mail & Guardian, 15-21 April 2005.
44
part three
Face to face with the ANC: Relating to the “mother body” CHAPTER 5
THE OTHER ANCYL OR THE ANCYL’S “OTHER”?
CHAPTER 6
AIMING TO BE THE CONGRESS “VANGUARD ORGANISATION”
Face to face with the anc: relating to the “mother body”
The other ANCYL or the ANCYL’s “other”?
5. THE OTHER ANCYL OR THE ANCYL’S “OTHER”? 5.1 THE “CLASS
OF
’44”,
A GENERATION THAT MADE HISTORY
The ANCYL was created by a new generation of militants - professors, law and medical students - in 1943-44. The ANC accepted to create a youth wing. Among its future leaders were Anton Muziwakhe Lembede, Peter Mda, Jordan Ngubane, Walter Sisulu, Nelson Mandela and Oliver Tambo. Their political approach was of internal dimension and they considered themselves an integral part of the ANC. In 1944, they succeeded in allowing the acceptance of a constitution and a founding manifesto by its president, Albert Bitini Xuma. The Youth League was formally created at the Bantu Men’s Social Centre of Johannesburg in April of that same year. The organisation was open to all Africans between the ages of 12 and 40. It aimed at promoting national consciousness and unity among African youth, at assisting and reinforcing the ANC and, finally, at promoting education, culture and moral values among African youth. The main instigator of the ANCYL was Anton Lembede. Inspiring himself from the ideologies that were spreading elsewhere in Africa and North America, he developed an ideology known as “Africanism”. He intended to break off with the tradition of the liberal and integrationist ideology of the ANC founding fathers. Nevertheless, in 1948, a document called “basic policy” brought up for the first time the notion of a “real democracy” in South Africa, where “all nationalities and minorities would see their basic human rights guaranteed by a democratic constitution”. Progressively, the ANCYL took some distance with “Garveyism” and ceased to advocate the expulsion of white people descendant of European settlers. It acknowledged the permanent South African inhabitant status of Coloureds and Indian. The achievement of such an endeavour of “organisational transformation” within the ANC implied the major cohesion of its founders. Hard core ANCYL founders were not very many and were composed of about twenty individuals who were initially strongly united around the Africanist ideology and bound by similar experiences. Most of them were born between 1914 and 1918. Of rural origin, they had experienced the Native Land Act (1913). They also shared a common experience of urbanisation as well as a strong academic experience (Robert Resha and Walter Sisulu were the only exceptions). These men’s education had certainly played an important role: all had followed the teaching of missionary schools (St. Peter’s School, Adams College, Lovedale), and not State schools. Lovedale had played a particularly
46
Face to face with the anc: relating to the “mother body”
The other ANCYL or the ANCYL’s “other”?
important role, as it was at the source of the creation of the South African Native College that later, in 1952, became Fort Hare University. The path of these individuals clearly refers to the reality of a generational consciousness, conceived as “social consciousness” and participation in a “historical process”, a generational consciousness that has become “so strong at times that the members of a generation mobilised and changed the course of history”124 However, as underlined by Edward Feit, “the political clash of generations rarely constitutes a clear rupture. In this case, a majority of younger and older members of the ANC became allies against an aging leadership and a youth minority.”125 The decisive moment of that alliance was the coming to power of the new ANC generation in 1949, at the time of the movement’s National Conference. Xuma had been approached by Sisulu, Tambo and Mandela who promised him their support in exchange for his support to the ANCYL Programme of Action (1949). As Xuma refused, the ANCYL put all its influence behind James Moroka, a competitor it chose over Xuma. Moroka then became president of the ANC and the youth league acquired a reputation of “king makers”. At the same time, Sisulu became Secretary-General of the ANC. In 1952, Moroka was overthrown to the benefit of Chief Albert Luthuli. Moroka paid the price of having dissociated himself from his companions at the time of the trial, following the Defiance Campaign. In 1956, the Freedom Charter was adopted as the programme of the ANC, and the ANCYL of the 1940s and 1950s had indeed given birth to the “modern ANC”. It was at the origin of the movement’s new radicalism, and its founding members were going to lead it to victory against apartheid. Fifty years later, the leaders of the liberation movement and those of the “new” South Africa were still part of the founding generation. The “Charterist” or “Congressist” Nationalism that slowly took hold of this generation, came to constitute the “essence” of “shared ANC beliefs”. This ideology, rather radical compared to the previous period, resulted, as seen previously, in different means of action. During the entire second half of the 20th century, it continued to oppose Africanist ideology. Thus, by the end of the 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s, Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) activists were often converted to Congressism. Some of them were welcomed into 124 Jean CRETE, Pierre FAVRE, Dir., Générations et politique, op. cit., p.8. 125 Edward FEIT, “Generational Conflict and African Nationalism in South Africa : The African National Congress,
1949-1959”, The International Journal of African Historical Studies, vol. 5, N°2, 1972, p.181-202, p.183.
47
Face to face with the anc: relating to the “mother body”
The other ANCYL or the ANCYL’s “other”?
exile by ANC structures and formed the MK “June 16th Detachment”, whereas others went to join the ANC on Robben Island, under the influence of Walter Sisulu, Ahmed Kathrada, Nelson Mandela and Govan Mbeki among others. In doing so, the militants of the 1980s became integrated into the congress’ tradition, which helped the “logic” behind choosing to become the ANCYL in 1990. 5.2 THE
GIANTS’ LEGACY
However, in contrast with their elders of the 1940’s ANCYL, the militants of the 1980s’ youth organisations did not directly rebel against their elders. They identified with the ANC even more than the ANCYL of the 1940s. Although the leaders of the ANC were previous members of the Youth League, the ANC they had given birth to then constituted the main point of reference for new generations. Nevertheless, one must remember that there were major differences between the two youth movements. First, the struggle against apartheid was going through a new phase in the 1980s. The groups’ make up was also different. In contrast to the 1940s ANCYL that was elite-based, the youth movements of the 1980s were the result of mass mobilisation. At ideological level, SAYCO and the other youth organisations were influenced by Marxism-Leninism and asserted their membership to the “class alliance” directed by the “working class” and COSATU. Dealing with the 1940s ANCYL, a document aiming at political education for presentday ANCYL branches126, portrays the rise of a new generation criticising the inefficiency of its predecessors and promoting new ways of contestation. One can nevertheless point to a history rewriting process when, without claiming paternity on behalf of the ANC, a section of the document dealing with the history of the ANCYL shifts naturally from the Youth section to the “generation of 1976”. However, the latter which subscribed above all to the BCM, was not Congressist. SAYCO is also directly assimilated to an ANCYL-to-be, a view we criticised in the first part hereof. In the same vein, the celebration of June 16th or Youth Day in South Africa does not however dissociate the event from the ANC from which it was independent. The young militants of present-day ANCYL perceive the organisation of the 1940s as an abstraction. During one of the interviews, a student, Executive Member of a branch of the Youth League, admitted not knowing when the ANCYL was created but said that the ANC was created in the 1910s. The student did not feel embarrassed for not knowing that date, which means that for her, as a member of this generation, it is not very significant. 126 ANCYL, Education and Training Unit, Developing future leaders today. A handbook for ANC Youth League branches,
March 1997.
48
Face to face with the anc: relating to the “mother body”
The other ANCYL or the ANCYL’s “other”?
According to the militants with a strong political education, such as Buti Manamela, the ANCYL of the 1940’s is a symbol of radicalism, of their elders’ protest that helped advance the struggle. Through this description, Manamela tends to condemn the cautious attitude of present-day ANCYL leaders.127 According to one interviewee, the ANCYL must also be radical: “I think that the fact of a Youth League speaking independently of the ANC is what has defined the Youth League in the 1940s, the Youth League of Mandela spoke openly against positions of the mother body and mobilised against, and took the decision to radicalise the mother body, leading to the 1949 programme of action of the ANC which for the first time introduced the notion of mass work. (…) Whereas before the ANC was an organisation of men in suits, going to negotiate with the authorities.” 128 But what is most striking in the discourse of the young militants, or the activists who recently became more politically active, is that they establish a more uncritical relation with the ANC, in comparison to their elders. One of the questions we regularly asked during the interviews was: “Can you imagine an end to the rule of the ANC over South Africa?”, to which Leebogang Maile, for example, answered: “Not in the next 200 years. The ANC is rooted in the people.”129 Philip Musekwa’s answer was also very significant in this regard: “Deputy Zuma said: the ANC will be in power until Jesus Christ comes back, I think the Church was offended by that.”130 Nkululeko Marope is, however, more nuanced as she says that it will take a long time. She argued that South Africans have not yet reached the stage where they can say they understand the meaning of democracy, they are still at “infancy stage” when it comes to experience democracy.131 The ANC is thus considered as a guide and constitutes a “natural” political reality. This relationship is reminiscent of the Weberian concept of “traditional” legitimacy. It means that, between the ANCYL and the ANC, there is also a relation between younger and elder. Tom Lodge also refers to this concept when he points out that “When the ANC professes, if you like, an “Africanist” set of ideas, it often talks about the necessity to respect old age, generational authority and so on. (...) If you disagree with your elders, you have to do it in a very respectful way.” 132
127 128 129 130 131 132
Buti MANAMELA, personal interview, 14 April 2005. Anonymus interviewee, personal interview, 4 May 2005. Leebogang MAILE, personal interview, 12 April 2005. Phillip MUSEKWA, personal interview, 13 April 2005. Nkululeko MAROPE, personal interview, 22 April 2005. Tom LODGE, personal interview, 12 April 2005.
49
Face to face with the anc: relating to the “mother body” Aiming to be the congress’ vanguard organisation
Another activist interviewed compares the ANC to a “family”, where many discussions take place but where one always ends up being convinced by one’s elders. This idea also implies that of paternalism, guidance and orientation, in other words, supervision. It is this relation between autonomy and independence that we are going to study from this point onwards, by examining ANCYL emancipation opportunities from the parent organisation. Oscar Van Heerden points out that political education, in today’s ANCYL, is based on the understanding of ANC principles .133 One can also observe a trend, in certain groups within the organisation, for the restoration of the old vanguard role of the ANCYL.
6. AIMING TO BE THE CONGRESS’ VANGUARD ORGANISATION 6.1 THE
DIALECTIC BETWEEN AUTONOMY AND INDEPENDENCE
The dialectic between autonomy as the right to govern itself according to its own laws, and independence as the freedom from any constraint, is at the heart of the relationship between the ANCYL and the ANC. This dialectic is, as we have shown, intimately linked to the issue of the “radicalism” of militancy that forms a basis of the identity claimed by the Youth League. As such, it is above all the product of the historical precedent of SAYCO. As long-time activist Neville Naidoo underlines, when the ANCYL was established, the issue appeared as crucial then for SAYCO militants who feared for their independence, and who were in the end granted autonomy in the new ANCYL.134 The current President of the ANCYL evokes the fact that the process of establishing the ANCYL was a negotiation and a political confrontation process since autonomy could not be taken for granted. Furthermore, some ANC individuals felt that the ANCYL should become a “desk.”135 Before the official inauguration of the provisional ANCYL in 1991, a document explored this issue. The text explains that in “general political and legal terms”, ‘autonomy’ (…) means ‘independence’ which is however neither absolute nor complete: it is qualified.”136 Autonomy concerns the administration, the organisational structure and the activities of the ANCYL; 133 134 135 136
Oscar VAN HEERDEN, personal interview, 3 May 2005. Neville NAIDOO, personal interview, 8 April 2005. Fikile MBALULA, personal interview, 13 April 2005. ANCYL, Inaugural Congress, 1991, Discussion Document B, “The ANCYL and Autonomy”.
50
Face to face with the anc: relating to the “mother body” Aiming to be the congress’ vanguard organisation
and it prevents the threat of becoming just an ‘auxiliary’. The Youth League holds its own conferences, elects its leaders, produces its resolutions, and establishes its programme. By its very nature, as such, the Youth League is meant to adopt a critical approach in relation to the ANC, within a constructive optic. This characteristic should be guaranteed by the autonomy that the new organisation was to benefit from. It was however threatened and questioned in the early 1990s, the critical period of the construction and consolidation of the organisation. The ANC representative in Uganda, Andrew Masondo, disputed for example the constitution of the ANCYL which made of the organisation an “autonomous structure” within the ANC, despite the fact that it was founded on the political and ideological objectives of the ANC and was meant to work with the ANC at all levels. Masondo rejected the very idea of ‘autonomy’, arguing that the organisational differentiation would make the ANCYL an ally of the ANC like the UDF and the SACP.137 Another element considered central by the opponents of autonomy is the question of membership by ANCYL members to the ANC. For Masondo, all ANCYL members should first be members of the ANC. For a long time, the Youth League only “encouraged” its members to become members of the parent organisation. A critical change in this regard occurred during the 22nd (and most recent) Congress of the Organisation, where a constitutional amendment made membership to the ANC compulsory. Interpreting the scope of this decision is delicate. Indeed, if the purpose of the ANCYL is to mobilise the youth behind the ANC (and therefore recruit more members for it), the question of primary membership of these ‘double’ members is strongly linked to the status of the relationship between the leaders of the ANCYL and those of the parent organisation. This point only reinforces the variable geometry of the ‘twin tasks’ of the ANCYL already mentioned above: i) to mobilise the youth behind the ANC and the national democratic revolution that it pursues; ii) to champion the interests of the South African youth.
6.2 THE
LOGICS OF INTERDEPENDENCY: A SCHOOL AT THE VANGUARD OF CONGRESS?
As shown in the first part hereof, the negotiation phase of the 1990s hindered any desire for participation. Yet Peter Mokaba and his Youth League kept on causing problems for the ANC during that period.
137 Horizon, n°5, 1991.
51
Face to face with the anc: relating to the “mother body” Aiming to be the congress’ vanguard organisation
Mokaba was indeed a ‘free spirit’ within the ANC generally. His inflamed speeches embarrassed the ANC at many points during the negotiations with the NP. He used the slogan he had made popular in the 1980s: “Kill the Boer, kill the farmer.” He also called for the murder of De Klerk.138 Even if he officially rejected this wish, he certainly incarnated the general denunciation, amongst the “young lions”, of the negotiations and the power sharing option. But by ‘going too far’, he also served the will of the ANC not to negotiate in a completely peaceful climate: it was a question of renouncing the use of armed struggle while simultaneously showing the government that the population remained mobilised. The relationship between Mokaba and the ANC was marked by interdependency: his charisma was essential to the ANC in order to mobilise the youth, and he needed the ANC to materialise his power. He thus maintained a considerable influence in the movement. When Mbeki clashed with Hani in 1991, the conflict was resolved with the intervention of Sisulu. In 1994, however, the ANC could no longer avoid the rivalry between Ramaphosa and Mbeki for the position of Mandela’s deputy. Both saw the position as essential in the preparation for the succession of the ANC’s president, which would be brought up at the national conference of 1997. It was also probably Ramaphosa’s hostility towards Mokaba and Winnie MadikizelaMandela that led to his demise, despite the support he initially received from the then ANC President, Nelson Mandela. Indeed, the support to Mandela’s ex-wife and Mokaba was decisive in the power structure of the ANC, as they controlled critical constituencies of the movement’s base – including the youth, who contributed to Mbeki’s success in 1994, and then in 1997.139 The subsequent period, under the presidency of Malusi Gigaba, was characterised by a strong allegiance to the ANC and to Thabo Mbeki in particular. It was the President himself who contributed to Gigaba’s access to the presidency of the Youth League in 1996, when he was competing against union activist David Makhura. For William Gumede, Gigaba was an instrument of control for the ANC over the ANCYL. His last speech as President of the ANCYL seems to confirm this view: he insisted on the ‘twin tasks’ line and declared that the ANCYL was at the disposal of the ANC.140 The Youth League is also a “preparatory school” for the ANC. Like any other youthbased political organisation, the League is a “moratorium” on youth which the older generation also distrusts and sees as a potential threat.141 The ANCYL remains a principal path of 138 J. M. RANTETE, The African National Congress and the negotiated settlement in South Africa, op. cit. 139 William Mervin GUMEDE, Thabo Mbeki and the Battle for the Soul of the ANC, p.45-49. 140 ANCYL, “Political Report of the President, Malusi Gigaba, to the 22nd National Congress of the African National Congress
Youth League”, Johannesburg, 19 August 2004.
141 Anne MUXEL, L’expérience politique des jeunes, op. cit.
52
Face to face with the anc: relating to the “mother body” Aiming to be the congress’ vanguard organisation
ascent into the ANC; it is a place where one becomes “mature” and receives “information”, constituting an important “bonus” for the political promotion of the individual. It is in its midst that one is educated in the “tradition” of the Congress – an aspect that is perhaps even more important today as apartheid no longer exists. For Nomi Nkondlo, it is important to start there because you understand the ANC better and become a better leader.142 It is thus not rare to hear the expression of ‘ANCYL graduate’ in reference to old members of the organisation. The ANCYL can be seen as an organisation that “separates” the young generations, to better “rally” them later to the older generations within the ANC.143 “Ascent” implies “remuneration”; and indeed, the positions of the State apparatus offer the ANC a new mode of affording remunerations to its members since 1994. Peter Mokaba thus became Minister of the Environment and Tourism when he left the ANCYL. Gigaba was appointed Deputy Minister of Home Affairs in 2004. Lulu Johnson became a member of the South African Parliament. Thabang Makwetla and Dipuo Peters became Premiers of the Mpumalanga and Northern Cape Provinces, respectively. Febe Potgieter was appointed Ambassador to Poland and David Makhura was elected Secretary-General of the ANC in Gauteng. Oscar Van Heerden, who has now left the organisation, agrees with the idea that the ANCYL remains a critical step in political ascent, although there are exceptions to the rule.144 Such remunerations also imply a certain level of control for the ANCYL via its interdependent relation to the ANC. For example, during an ANC provincial election, the ANCYL can choose to support one candidate or another. If the ANCYL-supported candidate wins, the ANCYL will logically be remunerated with a provincial ministry.145 The personal ambition of the leaders of the organisation represents however also a limiting factor in their contestation of the ANC. The financial independence of the ANCYL acts as security for its political independence vis-à-vis the ANC, but this independence is clearly never complete as the organisation can receive help from the ANC in case of treasury problems. It must also be noted that most ANC provincial and regional bureaux house a branch of the Youth League as well. The national office of the ANCYL is in fact located at Luthuli House, the ANC headquarters. Full-time members of the Youth League are often financed directly by the ANC, as is the case, for example, in the Western Cape Province.146
142 Nomi NKONDLO, personal interview, 20 April 2005. 143 Nathalie LUYCKX, Les partis politiques et l’organisation de la jeunesse à travers trois structures politiques de
jeunesse dans le Rhône : MJS, RPR-jeunes, FNJ, op. cit. p.192.
144 Oscar VAN HEERDEN, personal interview, 8 April 2005. 145 Rapule TABANE, personal interview, 25 April 2005. 146 Nomi NKONDLO, personal interview, 20 April 2005.
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Face to face with the anc: relating to the “mother body” Aiming to be the congress’ vanguard organisation
The ANCYL can also ultimately be seen as a means, for the ANC, to channel the youth. Tom Lodge confirms this, asserting that if the ANCYL does not necessarily pursue such a scheme deliberately, it serves the function of mobilising the youth, in the rural areas in particular. This mobilising function can potentially limit contestation and popular wrath in the face of difficult life conditions and the slow rhythm of social change.147 6.3 THE
ANCYL AND THE STRUGGLE FOR THABO MBEKI’S SUCCESSION
Thabo Mbeki’s succession will undoubtedly be at the heart of future political struggles in South Africa, even if the succession is only due in 2009, the year of the next general elections. It seems that the next national ANC conference, in December 2007, could be decisive for any potential candidate. The positions of ANC President and Vice-President are the primary stakes in this struggle. In 2002, the ANCYL, loyal to Thabo Mbeki, had called for the absence of competition in the attribution of the five leading positions in the ANC – and this scenario was indeed put into effect. Tentative competitors had been discouraged by Mbeki’s hegemony and by the case of the alleged “plot” of 2001. The national ANC conference in 2007 promises however to be much more contested. Thabo Mbeki will no longer be the President of South Africa, as the country’s constitution prevents him from running again, and neither he nor the ANC seems inclined to violate it. In his recent book, William Gumede identified those who could claim the succession: Jacob Zuma, Cyril Ramaphosa, Tokyo Sexwale, Mathews Phosa, Mosiuoa ‘Terror’ Lekota, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela or even Zwelinzima Vavi.148 On the 31st of May, 2005, after its annual “lekgotla,”149 the ANCYL declared, through its president Fikile Mbalula, that it would support Jacob Zuma, the then Vice-President of the country, for the succession of Thabo Mbeki.150 Less than a month later, the ANCYL condemned Mbeki’s supposed plans to remain at the head of the ANC in 2007. It is indeed often said that Mbeki has the ambition of placing an ally in the race for his own succession, in order to continue to govern from ‘behind the scenes’. Fikile Mbalula thus explicitly opposed any option of division between the “two centres of power”: the presidency of the ANC and that of the country.151 This pro-active initiative on the part of an ‘aggressive’ ANCYL marks a break with the ‘quietist’ and pro-Mbeki posture as previously defended by Malusi Gigaba over almost a decade. The organisation, whose leadership seems to have been at the centre of this 147 Tom LODGE, personal interview, 12 April 2005. 148 William Mervin GUMEDE, Thabo Mbeki and the Battle for the Soul of the ANC, p.309-322. 149 It is an informal (non-constitutional) ‘retreat’ of the ANCYL’s executive branch. In reference to ‘tradition’, the leaders
retreat to a place closer to nature to discuss more or less important subjects depending on the political agenda.
150 “Zuma for president – ANC Youth League”, SAPA, 31 January 2005. 151 “Youth league : Mbeki is not indispensable”, Mail & Guardian, 11 February 2005.
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Face to face with the anc: relating to the “mother body” Aiming to be the congress’ vanguard organisation
decision, defends the candidacy of Jacob Zuma on account of his position as vice-president of the ANC and of the Republic which, it was argued, made it logical for him to succeed Thabo Mbeki. This position is also defended from a “historical” perspective, Zuma being seen as a “legitimate” successor, in the “tradition” of the ANC, which puts great importance on age, rank and loyalty to the movement. What is most interesting in the ANCYL’s choice is that it intends to directly oppose Thabo Mbeki: the organisation first comes forward in favour of a candidate who is no longer in the good graces of the current President and, secondly, explicitly rejects the possibility of a new mandate for Mbeki at the head of the ANC. It seems that the ANCYL wants to end the “Mbeki-network”152 and promote the option of a leadership change. Furthermore, the ANCYL’s choice reveals some fragility in the relations between the two organisations by joining the left wing of the ANC which is also in favour of “JZ”. The YCL has in fact also joined this camp. Buti Manamela thinks that Jacob Zuma “could restore the tradition of the ANC.”153 Dirk Kotzé highlights that Zuma’s support is not necessarily based on his own personality, but rather on the idea that he could face and resist Mbeki.154 Moreover, considering his background, his position in the ANC and his increasing support-base, it is also reasonable to think that “betting” on Zuma, for the Youth League, would be like “playing a winning number,” by preparing for the future as per its own interests. However, Thabo Mbeki’s decision, on the 14th of June, to dismiss Jacob Zuma as Deputy President, dramatically questions such a vision. This decision followed Judge Squires’ conviction of Schabir Shaik, a businessman from Durban, to 15 years of confinement for fraud and corruption. Shaik is a close friend of Jacob Zuma, and the Vice-President’s name was regularly cited during the trial. Shaik was suspected of acting as an intermediary for payments from French armament company Thomson to Jacob Zuma. Judge Squires concluded in his judgement that the relationship between the two men was “generally corrupt.” Thabo Mbeki’s choice can be seen as strategic, but it appears, considering the situation, that he did not have an alternative, and that he acted as a ‘responsible’ head of State rather than as an ‘interested’ politician. The ANCYL accepted this decision in the name of the need to respect ‘equality before the law,’ while affirming the right to the presumption of innocence and its support for Jacob Zuma.155
152 Marianne SEVERIN, Pierre AYCARD, “Qui gouverne la « nouvelle » Afrique du Sud ? Elites, réseaux, méthodes de
pouvoir (1985-2003)”, in Philippe GUILLAUME, Nicolas PEJOUT, Aurelia WA KABWE-SEGATTI, dir., L’Afrique du Sud dix ans après, Transition accomplie ?, op. cit.
153 Buti MANAMELA, personal interview, 14 April 2005. 154 “Analysts split over Zuma’s future”, SAPA, 1 July 2005. 155 “ANCYL Statement on Announcement by President Mbeki”, 15 June 2005.
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Face to face with the anc: relating to the “mother body” Aiming to be the congress’ vanguard organisation
A few days later, Zuma was charged on two counts of corruption by the National Prosecuting Authority and Thabo Mbeki appointedhis close confidante, Phumzile MlamboNgcuka, to the position of Vice-President. The current President thus seems to have set a precious stone in the enterprise to preserve his heritage. Jacob Zuma then faced a second trial under the charge of “rape”, following the accusation of a young woman of his acquaintance and on ANC militant. After the second accusation, Zuma decided to temporarily resign from his position as ANC Vice-President. He was finally acquitted on the 8th of May 2006. These two trials became notoriously political and polarised the South African political arena for more than a year. The ANCYL sided with the ex Vice-President who violently attacked his accuser on several occasions. The ANCYL itself attacked the judiciary authorities, the media, as well as the Minister of Intelligence, Ronnie Kasrils, who was accused of plotting against Zuma. Owing to the fact that, the corruption charges were dropped on the 20th of September 2006, Zuma seems to stand a new chance to succeed in the race against Mbeki and his competitors. Even if Zuma were to be charged again, his position has already been reinforced. The ANCYL remains adamant in its choice for the time being and its Vice-President, Reuben Mohlaloga, was forced to apologise officially for having publicly announced his support of the option promoted by Mbeki who wants to remain President of the ANC in 2007. Mohlaloga was ultimately suspended by the NEC of the organisation. His declarations certainly indicate a strategic repositioning within the leadership of the ANCYL, and they seem to hint at internal divisions that could deepen. His (rather humiliating) apologies, however, confirm that the organisation does not plan to engage in major re-orientations on the current situation. Moreover, the executive of the ANCYL has recently decided to postpone its next national congress to March 2008 (hence violating the League’s constitution), so as to carry weight in the next ANC national conference. The present executive is indeed trying to protect itself from growing internal protests over the Youth League’s support of Zuma. In this regard, the Western Cape provincial executive of the ANCYL has been disbanded supposedly on the grounds of organisational dysfunction, although it is more likely that it has been disbanded for its criticism of the pro-Zuma stance of the national leadership.156 Once the ANCYL’s position is known, the remaining question will concern the “real” weight of the ANCYL in the designation of the new ANC leader. The constitution of the ANC stipulates firstly that 10% of the delegates voting during the National Conference must be allocated by its National Executive Committee between the Provincial Executive Committees, the ANCYL and the Women’s League. Concretely, this number constitutes 156 N. MCETYWA, “ANCYL national conference set for 2008”, Mail & Guardian, 15 December 2006.
56
Face to face with the anc: relating to the “mother body” Aiming to be the congress’ vanguard organisation
about 50 delegates from the ANCYL, and it is rather insignificant in relation to the 2000 delegates who participate, on average, in the ANC’s National Conference. The ANCYL’s strength is to be found elsewhere. It emanates first of all from its influence and positioning, which, considering its “symbolic power” (in the sense of Bourdieu’s notion of “symbolic domination”), carry significant weight. The League’s position, which is not necessarily in direct contact with the positions of power in the ANC and therefore does not necessarily depend on them, is an advantage in this regard. It is less ‘bound’ than other structures or individuals in the ANC and can therefore express itself more openly and starkly. It possesses an essential power of “conviction.” For Tom Lodge, “the Youth League is still considered an important base to conduct electoral campaigns” in the ANC. He also points out that in Thabo Mbeki’s case, the support he had in the ANCYL might have “impressed” some of his adversaries when the position of ANC Vice-President was being disputed.157 The weight of the Youth League is also found in the number of ANC delegates who have double membership. As Rapule Tabane explains, if one has to choose between the support of the ANCYL and that of the ANCWL in the ANC, one will choose the former as delegates with ANCYL affiliation will be more numerous and more influential in an ANC conference.158 The issue of delegates’ primary allegiance is central at this stage. ANC branches can send to the National Congress members who also belong to the ANCYL. This double allegiance is also naturally reversible, as expressed by an ex-member of the ANCYL who explained that, for example, a number of members of the Youth League had decided, individually, to vote for Ramaphosa rather than Mbeki in 1994. This also means that if the vote of ANC branches is influenced by a previous provincial decision, each delegate conserves de facto voting independence. Furthermore, non-official lists of candidates are often handed out in parallel to the official lists.159 In any case, the ANCYL is perceived by most major actors as carrying significant weight in the internal election that will determine the future of the movement. It is perhaps the principal “card” the ANCYL has today, and it plans on “conserving” it to maintain its reputation of ‘king-makers.’
157 Tom LODGE, personal interview, 12 April 2005. 158 Rapule TABANE, personal interview, 25 April 2005. 159 Tom LODGE, “The ANC and the development of party politics in modern South Africa”, op. cit., p.212.
57
conclusion
Conclusion Emancipated youth?
EMANCIPATED YOUTH? “Nowadays, young people are free. Before that, they were struggling for their future; they were only focusing on their liberation. They did not play football and if they did, they knew they had no chance to play for the national team or overseas. This is no longer the case. Today, young people have the opportunity to be rich at an early age, to study‌â€? That is how a cadre of the present ANCYL described the condition of young people in 21st century South Africa.160 This quotation is reminiscent of a comment made in the introduction of this work: South Africa’s history took a sharp turn during the past decade. Nevertheless, by making such an observation, one cannot ignore the fact that, after its political framework vanished, the apartheid regime was replaced by a socially – and therefore racially – stratiďŹ ed society. Much of the data about young people’s social position in post-apartheid South Africa exemplify such a reality:
h)N ABOUT OF hYOUNGv BLACK 3OUTH !FRICANS FROM TO YEARS OLD WERE JOBLESS AS OPPOSED TO OF YOUNG hCOLOUREDSv OF h)NDIANSv AND OF THEIR WHITE COUNTERPARTS )N UNIVERSITIES THERE ARE STILL ABOUT
lVE TIMES MORE WHITE STUDENTS AND THE LIFE EXPECTANCY OF THOSE WOULD BE ABOUT YEARS OLD AS OPPOSED TO YEARS FOR BLACK PEOPLE v
These ďŹ gures are of course controversial and can be contested. Yet, the racial “gapâ€? they express is huge. Travelling across South Africa potentially reects such a gap: dilapidated townships looking like Third World slums neighbouring on opulent “First Worldâ€? areas. Leebogang Maile’s discourse concerning the social condition of today’s South African youth, does not make it possible to conclude on the notion of “freedomâ€?: Will we talk about “realâ€? freedom, or will we rather speak of the persistence of a “formalâ€? freedom, the limits of which are to be found in the notion of “equalityâ€?? The liberation task pursued by the ANC through its National Democratic Revolution Programme seems to indicate that according to the organisation, freedom is still on its way forward.
160 Leebogang MAILE, personal interview, 12 April 2005. 161 CASE (Community Agency for Social Enquiry), Youth 2000: A Study of Youth in South Africa, CASE, December 2000. 162 Alan PETER, “Les blancs pèsent encoreâ€?, Projet, n°286, 2005, p.74-77.
60
Conclusion Emancipated youth?
As indicated in the introduction, freedom exists today first in its historical dimension, and in opposition to the oppression, over centuries, of today’s South Africans. The conditions for the exercise of that freedom have been conquered with the defeat of apartheid, but they raise a fundamental issue, an issue about the very concept of liberation: How, for instance, can one enjoy one’s physical freedom of movement while being socially confined in areas that are de facto segregated, and thus being restrained in one’s displacement ability? Such a reality does not downgrade the extent of the accomplished transformation, as described by Wole Soyinka, when he highlighted in 1994 that “South Africa is our dream; Rwanda our nightmare.”163
DEPOLITICISED YOUTH? In this problematic and disputed context, which is also revealing of the identity of the ANC as a political organisation, the ANCYL’s action is today often diminished. Many commentators describe the ANCYL as an organisation which is depoliticised when compared with the experience of SAYCO and with its own experience in the early 1990’s. This argument is outlined for example by the fact that the ANCYL would limit itself to “benign” actions in secondary domains like sports (cricket and rugby), instead of adopting a critical position in domains like education and social policies. Nevertheless, one can also argue that sport is still a highly political issue in South Africa. And the positions of the ANC Youth League in this domain are often more radically orientated than those of the ANC. Football has always been a “black sport” in South Africa, and even if there were political limitations (due to the apartheid regime) to black people’s success in this domain, young and talented players were able to build themselves up on the dusty fields of the townships. The success of football players like Benny McCarthy (currently playing for Porto FC) and Quinton Fortune (playing for Manchester United) illustrates this statement. The Ellis Park stampede of April 2001, where dozens of people were killed, was partly due to the fact that security rules and the limitation on the number of football fans within stadiums have always been less complied with in football games than rugby matches. Rugby, a mainly “white sport”, continues to be controversial as the Springboks are still not to this day representative of the South African “Rainbow nation”. Swimming, as a young ANCYL
163 Quoted by Anatole AYISSI, “L’Afrique du Sud : une puissance régionale?”, Questions internationales, n°4, Nov-Dec. 2003,
p.97-104.
61
Conclusion Emancipated youth?
activist explained, is also a very revealing example. One of today’s greatest international swimming champions, Roland Schoeman, is South African, whereas many young black people do not have access to any pool and therefore do not have the opportunity to learn how to swim.164 The “depoliticisationâ€? idea, as outlined in the introduction of this article, is generally used to comment on the South African youth as a whole. This idea is based on objective data like the fact that only 48% of South Africans aged between 18 and 20 are registered to vote, compared to 77% among South Africans aged between 20 and 30.165 It seems that young people might only be interested in music, the pleasures of consumer society and the perspective of personal enrichment. Personal enrichment is raising important questions today. In this regard, William Gumede asks in his last book the following question: “What’s wrong with being ďŹ lthy rich?â€?166 Yet the idea of the South African youth being depoliticised is very often not more than a clichĂŠ. The experience related by the many young people we encountered for the study, concerning their political political commitment and true beliefs, tells otherwise. As Tom Lodge indicates, for the “post-apartheidâ€? generation, belonging to the ANC:
h)T IS SAFE TO BELONG TO SUCH ORGANISATIONS ;AS THE !.#9,= NOW -Y OWN RESEARCH IN THE !.# SUGGESTS THAT THERE IS STILL A PARAMOUNT ACTIVISM IDEALISM AND COMMITMENT AMONGST !.# RANKS AND MEMBERSHIP 4HEY LIKE TO BE INVOLVED IN DAY TO DAY ACTIVITIES /F COURSE FOR PEOPLE IN RURAL AREAS IT IS SOMETHING TO DO x 9OU KNOW ENTERTAINMENT IS VERY LIMITED IN ,EBOWA 4HE OTHER THING OF COURSE IS THAT IT IS A CONDUCT FOR PEOPLE WHO ARE AMBITIOUS YOU KNOW BELONGING TO A BRANCH EXECUTIVE IS THE lRST STEP v
The negative outlook on today’s youth is also often professed by the 1980s generation. When analysing the 1980s and SAYCO, it seems more appropriate to talk about a change in the conditions of politicisation and political involvement, than about depoliticisation. Such a change is mostly implied by a reorganisation of the South African political life as well as by the deep transformations that keep on shaping actual political organisations.
164 165 166 167
T.M., personal interview, 9 April 2005. National Youth Commission, Status of the Youth report, Johannesburg, NYC, 2002. William Mervin GUMEDE, Thabo Mbeki and the Battle for the Soul of the ANC, op. cit., p.215-233. Tom LODGE, personal interview, 12 April 2004.
62
Conclusion SAYCO, The ANCYL and the ANC...
SAYCO, THE ANCYL AND THE ANC: THE STEEP PATH TOWARDS ORGANISATIONAL TRANSITION The present study was neither focused on South African youth or centred on young people within the ANC, but rather on those affiliated to that specific youth political organisation connected to the ANC: the ANCYL. As such, the intention was to provide an overview of the complexity of this organisation, as opposed to normative views that tend to be simplistic. Hence, the structure of the genesis, foundation and development of the ANCYL over the fifteen years of its existence. The first part focused on SAYCO which, through its composition, experience and aspirations, constituted a base and driving-force for the (re)construction of the ANCYL when the ANC came back to South Africa in 1990. However, setting up a new youth organisation in the new South African context raised a series of problems highlighting the fact that SAYCO was much more than an ANCYL-to-be. SAYCO was, above all, an organisation differentiated from the ANC. Although it was in line with the programme of the ANC and its members generally identified with the ANC, SAYCO evolved in the participatory context of the UDF, which guaranteed its independence. During the 1980s, SAYCO had been at the forefront of the struggle against apartheid. This position soon came to contradict the ANC that was privileging a negotiated settlement with the NP at the beginning of the 1990s. After relating this initial phase, marked by the relaunch of the ANCYL at the end of 1991, we highlighted the initial troubles experienced by the organisation in its relationship to the ANC, as well as in its own development as a political organisation. We also showed that the rapidity of the transition from SAYCO to the ANCYL contributed to curb the political debate that could have otherwise taken place and that was expected by many. The eagerness shown in disbanding SAYCO, comparable to the disbanding of the UDF, resulted from identification with the ANC as well as the will to avoid a division of anti-apartheid forces at such a crucial time. The second part focused on the materialisation of the new organisation and its characteristics. The ambition of the organisation was first to be representative of all sectors of South African youth. Such aspiration requires that a mass-based organisation be built. In doing so, the ANCYL sometimes concentrated more on numbers than on a clear ideology. Power relations within the ANCYL, which work around issues such as democratic centralism, internal debate and participation of members in political decisions were also examined and revealed the various streams making up the ANCYL, as well as its internal protest dynamics for challenging the dominant view generally embodied by the leadership of the youth organisation, where such protest is often the result of affiliates and allied youth formations.
63
Conclusion SAYCO, The ANCYL and the ANC...
Finally, the third part looked at the ANCYL in its relation to the mother organisation. The Youth League constitutes an integral part of the global ANC and both organisations are linked de jure and de facto in a relation of co-operation. One of the tasks of the Youth League is, logically, to serve as a school for the future cadres of the African National Congress. The memory of this “original” experience within today’s ANCYL and showed that the identity it wishes for reflected a tendency towards constructive and avant-gardist co-operation with its mother body. Indeed, as far as ANCYL dynamics are concerned, its relationship with the ANC aims at being creative and is based on the dialectic of independence and subordination, autonomy and heteronomy. The content of their relationship depends on the state of political forces. On the whole it is unequal since the political weight of the ANC is naturally superior to that of the ANCYL. The unstable geometry of the twin tasks of the Youth League, i.e. i) mobilising the youth behind the ANC and ii) representing and championing the general interests of young people, largely depends on the variations of the relationship between both structures. As a result, the new ANCYL gave up most of its vanguard role within the ANC, in comparison with its 1940s ancestor. Leaders of the new organisation do not directly get involved in ANC elections. The ANCYL however is still seeking to keep its historical role in the choice of ANC leadership. It remains an essential base from where to conduct an internal campaign for election. As such, the ANCYL still wishes to carry weight in the identity and policies of the parent organisation. This last point highlights the pertinence of studying youth political organisations as an important contribution to the understanding of political organisations. The position of young people within a political organisation can be perceived as a handicap as they lack political skills, but it can also be used as a resource.168 The relationship with the ANC is crucial and informs the internal fights taking place within the ANCYL. They consist of a struggle for the monopoly and control of power. With such an aim, two main streams are in opposition since the mid-1990s: that of the Mbeki supporters who swear an uncritical allegiance to the ANC; and that of those who want the ANCYL to recover its avant-gardist role. The conflict is also generational: members of the 1980s’ generation within the two tendencies mentioned want to impose their orientation on the post-apartheid generation. While most of the members of the ANCYL’s executive still belong to the “class of ‘87”, the next national conference, in 2008, should see their replacement by Youth League members who became politically aware after or during the fall of apartheid. This national conference will undoubtedly be fascinating and will constitute a decisive moment, 168 Nathalie LUYCKX, Les partis politiques et l’organisation de la jeunesse : travers trois structures politiques de jeunesse
dans le Rhône : MJS, RPR-jeunes, FNJ, op. cit.
64
Conclusion SAYCO, The ANCYL and the ANC...
which can potentially conclude the organisational transition opened by the foundation of the ANCYL in 1990. The (re)launch of the Young Communist League (YCL), which seems to be filling a gap in certain youth sectors, affords a general survey of the existing potential for youth politicisation in post-apartheid South Africa. TOWARDS
THE END OF ANC TRANSFORMATION?
The ANC will also gather in 2007, in order to elect its new leaders who might not be new after all. Indeed, Thabo Mbeki seems to think that he could carry on leading the ANC although he will quit the South African presidency in 2009, as per the Constitution. The ANCYL plays an important role in the preparation of this deadline and ANCYL is opposed to keeping Mbeki at the helm of the ANC and intends to lean in this direction. The ANCYL might change its mind if it feels that defeat cannot be avoided. Nevertheless, the “battle for the soul of the ANC” 169 has been launched within the movement and its youth wing. The very notion of the “ANC soul” lies at the heart of problems surrounding the definition of the organisation as a political object. William Gumede argues that “the identity of the old ANC is changing fast and its soul is becoming harder to locate.”170 He adds that ten years after the fall of apartheid, the similarities between today’s organisation and yesterday’s liberation movement are limited, “but if there is a single defining event in the battle for the organisation’s soul, it must be the internal struggle over economic policy.” 171 The transformation of the ANC is still taking place. Indeed, while the ANC might have adapted to the conditions of legality and adopted a rather “standard” party structure, it is too early to claim that the ANC has become a “conventional” political party. The organisational as well as generational transitions of its leadership have not yet been completed, and the generation that continues to run the ANC and South Africa is the same as that who defeated apartheid. Its previous identity and the ongoing definition of its post-apartheid identity are still at the centre of internal oppositions making up today’s ANC. The disparagers of Thabo Mbeki’s politics consider that he made the ANC deviate from its liberation movement mandate, while his admirers believe he adapted the organisation to the conditions of modernity. In 2001, the SACP decided to become a mass-based party and it reached 200 000 members in 2004.172 The launch of the YCL is part of the reinforcement strategy of the 169 170 171 172
William Mervin GUMEDE, Thabo Mbeki and the Battle for the Soul of the ANC, op. cit. Ibid., p.127. Ibid., p.132. William Mervin GUMEDE, Thabo Mbeki and the Battle for the Soul of the ANC, op. cit, p.271.
65
Conclusion SAYCO, The ANCYL and the ANC...
movement’s base and the leftist tendency within the ANC. It represents the last attempt to succeed in this “battle for the soul of the ANC” which, ultimately, might not be that epic. Indeed, the changes expected in case of a victory of the movement’s left wing would probably be structurally limited. An alliance is however being formed, one that wants to break the “Mbeki governance” that has monopolised the organisation for almost ten years.
66