THE ANC AND RELIGION - PART 5
The final section in the InsidePolitics series on the ANC and religion follows below. As indicated before, the series should be read as a whole, as each section actually forms part of a single essay. The five sections are:
1. Introduction
2. The ANC and Religion
3. Thabo Mbeki and the Truth
4. Jacob Zuma and God
5. Conclusion
Here, then, is the conclusion.
THE ONE TRUE CHURCH
By: Gareth van Onselen
Conclusion
“[Zuma’s view that the ANC is more important than the Constitution has] not been challenged, which in itself is sad and very unfortunate. I think in the coming period we are going to have to answer to that because if that statement is going to be the guiding light for the ANC then I think we are completely on the wrong route, completely. I cannot see that South Africa can be different from so many of the African countries which have got excellent documents on paper but when it comes to practice it's completely something different. I think if in the end that is really what we have fought for or what we are expected to have fought for and so on, then freedom will never really dawn on our side. I think we need to be dealing with that issue as early as possible. I think all of us need to take very seriously the implications of this and we must do so with foresight, understanding full well that once one brick on the foundation of any building was skewed one way or the other the rest of the building will never become straight. It will continue to be even more skewed the higher the building goes.”[1] [Patrick Lekota]
Accepting that no metaphor holds up to close examination, a good analytical tool allows you to do two things: to explain and predict behaviour. With regards to the ANC’s particular brand of black African nationalism, religion allows us to do just that, certainly in broad terms and with specific reference to the politics of Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma.
But let me illustrate this point in practical terms. South Africa is currently in the grip of a series of sustained xenophobic attacks. How do these fit into the relationship I have described above?
In crude terms, xenophobia is a kind of racism - true, the discrimination is on the basis of nationality, as opposed to skin colour, but the principle is the same. And, as I argued in the section on the ANC and religion, racism is inextricably linked to the ANC’s grand narrative: it is the manifestation of the evil that defined the apartheid state. As far as the ANC is concerned, its continued existence today is because of apartheid, and those who still practice racism represent the remnants of that system. Inherent in that idea, is that racism is exclusively linked to white people and that black South Africans, as the victims of years of racial oppression and discrimination, are simply not capable of being racist. To admit that racism is a universal practice committed by people of all races, is something that runs fundamentally against the ANC’s world view.
And so, faced with the outbreak of intense and massively hostile discrimination within the country’s townships, the ANC government did two things in response: first, it denied any responsibility and, second, it blamed a ‘third force’.
In terms of our comparison, this makes perfect sense. The ANC government or any failures on its part could not be to blame. Nor could black South Africans, the very people it represents a
| Posted on 19/6/2008
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