Independent on Saturday

Evolution of liberation party’s ideologies and cultural outlook

LESLIE MXOLISI DIKENI Sociologist and author

OVER the past few months, much has been said by political analysts, party leaders, trade union leaders, different civic organisational leaders and different members of the ANC about the successes and failures of the pre- and post-Polokwane conference of the ANC.

The analysis and arguments of these various actors centred around the various leadership squabbles within the ANC, the succession debate, the different policy outcomes of the Polokwane conference and who the “dominant” and “less dominant” forces behind those policies are, the different ideological forces dominating the ANC and linked to this is whether the party is a political organisation that has adopted socialism or capitalism as an ideological path for the developmental process for South Africa.

Key to some of these vignettes, are the conflicting debates over the relationship between the ANC and its alliance partners, Cosatu and the SACP.

In my view, all these analytical political assertions are discursive, outward looking, politically-deterministic and have failed to deal with the structural historical problems of what was a socially dynamic liberation movement. In particular, they have failed to analyse the rich historical “organisational culture” of such a liberation movement, and the importance of culture in sustaining, building, and socially developing an organisation.

Nowadays, however, the concept of culture does not necessarily carry this old evaluative stance, being used more generally to signify that different groups of people have different ways of life.

When talking about society as a culture we are thus using an agricultural metaphor to guide our attention to specific aspects of social development.

The colonial period, can briefly be characterised as that period when the ANC was directly in conflict with the apartheid regime in fighting colonialism and racism in all its forms. Such a period was characterised by many different stages and took different paradigmatic shifts. These are for example, the year 1912 during the birth of the ANC. This period, as with many others, can be described in many ways.

However, at a specific cultural level the most apparent cultural character of the ANC was that of a movement that was strongly influenced by religion, by social values of traditionalism and modernity and a social concern for the liberation of the African people from colonialism and racism. To reach that goal meant that the liberation movement had to use a variety of strategies and tactics including mass mobilisation, organising and developing concrete actions against the apartheid colonial regime.

The second period was that of the 1950s and that of the 1960s. The historical events of this period were similar to those of 1912 except with some minor changes at a strategic level. For example, during this period the liberation movement embarked on an armed struggle and other actions such as mobilising the international community against the apartheid regime.

The apparent, historical organisational and cultural rupture that took place within the liberation movement based on the conditions of violent repression by the regime at the time, was that of the 1970s and the 80s. This period is characterised by two distinct and yet interwoven ideological trends within the history of the liberation struggle in South Africa, that of the black consciousness movement and that of what was popularly known as the congress tradition.

At a specific organisational cultural level (our primary concern here), this period can be characterised as that of popular uprisings by different organisations organised into different sectors of South African society.

Although holding different ideological positions and having different interests these organisations were dynamic and united by a common agenda, that of opposing the apartheid regime. Of importance, organisationally and culturally speaking these organisations operated within a framework of organising people within the different sectors (for example the UDF with its affiliates) of South African society. Among other things, this meant that they had greater autonomy among themselves, actions taken were specific and issues based, members within the organisation could be more creative and dynamic, be more critical, more vibrant and thus could engage freely in political and social issues of the day.

Any analysis that seeks to understand both strengths and weaknesses of the outcomes of the deliberations in Polokwane, should at least be able to incorporate within its theoretical framework of analysis a historical organisational interpretation of the ANC.

Shared values, shared beliefs, shared meaning, shared understanding and shared sense-making are all different ways of describing culture.

In talking about culture we are really talking about a process of reality construction that allows people to see and understand particular events, actions, objects, utterances or situations in distinctive ways. These patterns of understanding help us to cope with the situations being encountered and also provide a basis for making our own behaviour sensible and meaningful.

OPINION

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2022-05-28T07:00:00.0000000Z

2022-05-28T07:00:00.0000000Z

http://independentonsaturday.pressreader.com/article/282149294937827

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