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That some mean-spirited people chose to condemn and attack the pioneer movement of the ANC, Masupatsela a Walter Sisulu, which wrote a letter to secretary-general Comrade Gwede Mantashe, is unfair and regrettable.
I too was a pioneer in Lesotho and Swaziland. Masupatsela started as a body that educated us children of ANC leaders and members politically and culturally since we were born and raised in exile. This, to prepare us to integrate into society not as outsiders, but as part of our movement and, more importantly, our country.
Today Masupatsela remains an ANC body run by branches, providing political education to our children.
The ANC prides itself on being the home of a multiplicity of views, voices and ideas. In many ways, the current mood whereby comrades turn on each other in defence of one man is telling of the sad state of our organisation. However, it also demonstrates that our core belief in debate and disagreement – until we reach a democratic, majority-supported solution as a political organisation – is intact.
I take this as a positive thing. Some of our leaders think that voters will turn against provinces expressing a view that is not popular in the national executive committee. I disagree.
The ANC as a leader of society and a mass movement represents the broader views of the country. The public in Gauteng, in the main, agrees with the principled stance taken by the leadership of the province.
The principle held by the pioneers is the same. President Jacob Zuma was found to be on the wrong side of the very Constitution he is meant to be the custodian of. For us in the organisation to close ranks in defence of a violation of this magnitude is simply wrong and cannot be justified, no matter how much we are attacked for telling the truth. Gauteng is leading the way.
We were brought up by the ANC and encouraged to view each other as family for lack of extended blood ties in exile. As with any family, it is our duty to defend it when it is under attack, but our bigger responsibility is to criticise it and correct its wrongs within democratic structures when our leadership errs.
Defending the indefensible would shock OR Tambo and Walter Sisulu, our grandfathers in whose names Masupatsela conducts itself. Instead of attacking the ideas and principles raised in the letter that was written to Comrade Mantashe, the pioneers who signed the letter have been attacked for their privilege.
Perhaps their critics are unaware of the deliberate strategy that was developed by the ANC to prepare a broad-minded and educated black middle class to immediately take up the reins of production, industry and business in a democratic South Africa. Countries and NGOs donated money and provided scholarships to the ANC so that young exiles could be educated in the best institutions across the globe.
Locally, organisations such as the Kagiso Trust played the same role in providing educational opportunities for black youth to attend South African institutions of learning. The ANC today continues to grow the black middle class through sound policies meant to lower the gap between rich and poor, black and white.
Many of our compatriots continue to live in squalor, poverty and exclusion. The question we should be asked as pioneers is: What are we doing to improve the lives of fellow South Africans? We have a responsibility to be part of the solution without apologising for our privilege. We owe our being to the ANC, which provided for us – not for our own benefit, but for the good of South Africa.
Sexwale is a communications strategist and an ANC pioneer
