After initially denying that the downturn in its vote in the local government election was of any concern, the African National Congress (ANC) has since reconsidered and decided that it would indeed have a post-mortem into the result. It wants to specifically establish why it has lost support among minority groups.
Stop sniggering, folks. Even if the answers seem laughably obvious, such an exercise of self-examination — if it is genuine — would serve not only the interests of the ANC, but of South Africa as a whole.
The erosion of race-based voting templates is critical to entrenching South Africa’s democracy. Black Africans should feel free to support any party — not only the one claiming all credit for liberation — without fear of social exclusion or threats of having their homes burned down. Equally, white people, coloured people and Indians should be able to vote for the ANC without facing raised eyebrows and derision in their communities.
And after all, the ANC is the longest established non-racial entity on the political landscape. The 1955 Freedom Charter not only starts with the ringing words, “South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white”, but also at several points reiterates the ANC’s revulsion towards racism.
The charter declares: “The rights of the people shall be the same, regardless of race, colour or sex”; “All national groups shall be protected by law against insults to their race and national pride”; and “The preaching and practice of national, race or colour discrimination and contempt shall be a punishable crime.”
This spirit is accordingly encapsulated in clause three of the ANC constitution, which states that the party will not only be “non-racial”, but “anti-racist”, and “against any form of … ethnic chauvinism”.
These principles demand high standards of conduct, and these may perhaps be impossibly high standards to set itself given the pattern of ANC electioneering post-1994. As the nationalist rightwing of the ANC has grown in influence, the ANC’s tone of political discourse has deteriorated to a vitriolic and emotive level where the opposition is demonised as either racist or so stupid as to be the tools of racists.
The ANC committee tasked with explaining the antipathy of minorities towards the party should consider the effect of government spokesperson Jimmy Manyi on the coloured community. Manyi, mimicking the imagery of the apartheid government’s notorious “surplus people”, said that “this concentration of coloureds in the Western Cape is not working. They should spread to the rest of the country … because they are in over-supply where they are”.
Turning to the Indian community, there is Manyi again, then director general of labour, fretting about the over-representation of Indians in management. Manyi, with misplaced jocularity, serves up all the clichéd stereotypes of another era: “I call it power bargaining. The Indians have bargained their way to the top.”
Then there is the white community, which has been the butt of increasingly strident abuse. There is the song with the words “kill the boer” and taunts by ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema that “whites are criminals and must be treated as such”, their land seized without compensation. All while President Jacob Zuma sits meekly silent alongside him.
This week ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe conceded that such remarks had cost the party votes but was firm that the party would never “disown” Malema. Some sections of society were being “oversensitive” to comments that appeared to be racist.
An extension of ANC racism is the thinly veiled aggression towards black supporters of the opposition. “Coconuts”, “sell outs” and “tea girls of the madam” are all part of a deliberate closing down of political space. The next step is to punish such transgressors with physical violence.
The ANC inquiry should be more than about lost votes. It should about the dignity that we accord our fellow citizens, irrespective of their race or creed, as well as what kind of land we want to live in.
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