Behind My Pipe Smoke
Fanzo Skhova
01/09/2016
It is nothing personal that the ANC is the most talked political organization in the media, streets, churches, pubs, institutions of learning, in ANC meetings and any other place imaginable in mzansi in the past month. Otherwise, this acknowledges that this is not a small-town organization.
The epicenter of the big talk is its unprecedented poor performance in the LGE 2016. This talk grew more raging flames upon announcements of outcomes elections of municipal councils across the land. Specifically, that the glorious movement has lost more municipalities compared to the previous election. Subsequently, all sorts of comments, debates and accusations flew all over the South African socio-political atmosphere. Political atmospheric gases processed themselves into high pressure storms that caught many of us unprepared for an early rainy session.
Amid the storms, high velocity winds swept off tact, tenacity, humility and maturity from an already-loose grip of many in the leadership across levels. This lost grip pushed some leaders abandon critical thinking in favour of generalized politicking after the fact (LGE 2016). This indiscriminate politicking was and is still about anything including a fresh revelation – perhaps unintended – that the ANC is a Black party distinguishable in comparison to the white DA. Perhaps there is a point there should anyone clarify why the mayors of both Tshwane and Joburg look much black than white. So much for one with a documented legacy of a Black Like Me success story. Alright, maybe that is just a product brand name. The best input one could sponsor right now is a provision of cost-free reading glasses, in addition to social grants, for a black voter may help them see and tell a white racist party from a black pro-democracy party. If this black voter’s vision deficiency is left unattended, more votes will still go to the “wrong” party.
You see, the bottom line is that attempting to discredit a victorious opponent after the final whistle is as immature and embarrassing. In this space enters the character of the only ANC mayor of a Metro in Gauteng. Embarrassment number one: not all of us in the ANC are corrupt. Boom! The comrade dropped a confession on behalf of the organization right there in front of camera lights and flashes. In simple terms, this confession seeks to clarify that there are corrupt leaders in the organization. It also draws our attention to the detail of numbers. I guess the expectation is for us all to accept that corruption, if not practiced by a certain number out of the total, is good corruption. I for one was not exceedingly astonished because the president of the women’s organ prepared me for this official announcement when she declared that each one of them in the ANC NEC “has his or her own skeletons”. Tact, is a critical attribute of a good leader especially one entrusted with governing a Metropolitan City. So, deficiency thereof for one entrusted with such a weighty responsibility makes some of us very afraid.
Embarrassment number two; where were you when apartheid regime leaders looted …? To ask that question live on air on Power FM is a worrying signal. The correct answer is that Power FM was not there. The benefit of doubt we credit him for is that he was probably referring to media across the board. But the problem remains. The message we received is that both the apartheid and democratic regime leaders “looted and are looting” respectively. Effectively, this leader is advising media to desist from reporting about current looting because they have a backlog and missed deadlines to report on apartheid looting. Perhaps there is point there. After all, there is no way you can take the next step before completing the previous. That is logic but not ethics. Some of you further attribute to the same leader, a comment that by voting for DA, blacks showed that they forgot so easy and quick that the DA is the same party that hanged Solomon Mahlangu. He is forgiven for ignorance of the aggregate objective behind the whole reconciliation process.
“When the results came out and later the EFF declared its intent to bury the ANC, I felt like a dad whose daughter has not comeback home from a date. He will still hope it’s not true his daughter is no longer a virgin, he will at first react to his daughter in a manner her daughter never saw, will blame the mother in some way, resent the boy or man that is in the center of his loss of ‘private’ influence and so on. But my hope lies in the truth that out of that the dad might have greater outcomes, a new son that must be respected, maybe a son in law later, maybe grandchildren and most importantly a lesson on how to protect your daughter to become a woman like her mother that you once took out and never returned and so on. In the end the mess become normal and you can in calmness reclaim your position, which was never in threat, as a father to your daughter. Our liberation is the daughter, the ANC is the father. If the ANC still wants to be the father, it must just parent the new situation properly and its respect, a renewable resource, will be restored. Be strong South Africa.” FB post by Professor Lucky Mathebula, August 2016, South Africa
It cannot be emphasized any less that this is nothing personal against the ANC. If anything, three quarters of the people who continue to make commentary about the ANC post-LGE 2016 are sympathetic and honest. Even more interesting is that within the organization itself, senior leaders have begun to pronounce along the same lines as some of us. So if you choose to choke yourself with intentional denial, your political demise will be recorded as death by suicide. Many, like Professor Mathebula, appeal with the ANC to introspect, rectify and re-invent itself into the liberation movement our people have known and loved. So those ANC supporters, members and leaders who continue to “speak right” will be held directly and personally responsible for the demise of the organization. Corruption can be briefly defined as dishonesty. Propositionally, if corruption is dishonesty, those who are dishonest are committing corruption. So being dishonest to yourself is like exercising corruption against yourself.
Amnesia is defined as “partial or total loss of memory, usually resulting from shock, psychological disturbance, brain injury or illness.”
When a person, especially one supposedly representing an organization, accuses the black voter of forgetting the “sins” of the “white party”, she or he is essentially diagnosing a black voter of amnesia. Whether this is a frank analysis or a summary of insult hurled a black voter is a debate for another Sunday. But a much better way to analyze this apparent conviction is that the speaker thereof is dishonest to himself and likely knows so. As agreed already, dishonesty is an equivalent of, if not outright corruption. Where do people find idea that blacks have been voting for the ANC to avenge the killing of Mahlangu or any other atrocities? Which line in the election manifesto referred to Mahlangu or any atrocity by the apartheid regime in order to appeal to a black vote? We will repeat because this is the right thing to say – that political parties need to admit fast that today’s voter is far much dynamic than the one of 1994. The next honourable thing to do in order to regain the respect, trust and love of the people is to “parent the new situation properly”.
