Desperate need for ANC unity

WHEN Cope was formed, the rhetoric by its leaders was that divorce papers had been served.

I wondered what reasons were given when the divorce was filed. Probably irreconcilable differences.

It was by many measures an interesting analogy to the concept of unity within a party. Comparing party unity with marriage was fair, especially if we take into consideration George Bernard Shaw's quote: "Marriage is an alliance between a man who can't sleep with the window open and a woman who can't sleep with the window shut."

If ever there is a shortage of ideas, there is always a surplus of differences within parties. And depending on the passion and ambition within the point of contention, it is presented as irreconcilable, as a game changer.

My perspective on party unity was sparked by Moipone Malefane's article titled "Save the ANC from itself", August 15. The article was a necessary analysis of the divisions within the ANC, but unfortunately she simplified the concept of unity and the process it takes to regain unity (though I doubt unity ever existed the way it is purported).

In my view, a democratic mass-based party being perfectly unified is Utopian.

The alliances of the ANC were in the past bound by greater external pressures that made its internal differences just that: differences.

The history of the liberation struggle emphasised the tensions between the ANC and the Communist Party of South Africa in the early decades of the 20th century.

These tensions were ultimately overshadowed by the greater threat of an external adversary, which was in this case apartheid.

Chinese history has some similarities even at its more extreme end. The war between nationalists and communists was ultimately overshadowed by the external threat of Japan. Unity between the two opposing groups became a necessity.

Unity is always and will always be a product of need rather than want. More importantly, it is a need that must be recognised by all parties that seek to be unified.

Perhaps the downfall of the ANC "unity" started with the demise of the caricature of the opponent the ANC was pitted against.

With the ascendancy of a democratically elected ANC government that ran the state, the old enemy that was the state died. Police became black, leaders became black and by appearances alone, it seemed the ANC had won.

Unfortunately, when a liberation movement cannot find an external enemy, it finds an enemy within. The external pressures that bound the ANC throughout its inception and ascendancy became less apparent. Unity now seemed to exist out of want rather than need. The ANC space of leadership was now being subjected to the nuances of individually introspective ambition.

It is within this space that personalities clashed and defined the politics of the moment.

It was probably as former president Thabo Mbeki sombrely described when he quoted Charles Dickens: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on it being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only".

If "the centre cannot hold" it is a result of unity becoming a want rather than a need. It seems to some that the need has become ambition and position.

Unity has been forsaken not because of Polokwane, but rather as a result of the political conditions that have created the mirage of the ANC's supremacy.

The old enemy was never a political system, but an economic one. The political system was just the watchdog for an economic agenda of exploitation.

The old enemy still exists - in poverty, in deindustrialisation and in a poor education system that perpetuates black people's dependency.

The need for unity is even greater if we are to overcome the chronic challenges of the old enemy of economics.

The necessity exists for unity. And the idea of unity itself should not be used to divide. To say unity was not achieved because of President Jacob Zuma is no different than saying a marriage failed because one person did not try hard enough.

It is deceptive to imply that unity can be achieved by one part of the divide prioritising unity.

In fact, this argument underscores the collectivism upon which the ANC was founded.

Leadership must be at the helm of these efforts of unity, but history has shown us that not all efforts to gain unity end with the joining of hands.

In the case of China in the mid 1970s, the Gang of Four sowed division. A group led by the wife of the iconic Chairman Mao, Jiang Qing, entrenched itself in state machinery, carrying out a war of division undermining all leadership apart from its own.

Eventually the party removed the Gang of Four and rallied around an economic agenda led by Deng Xaoping, which was the beginning of the rise of China as we know it.

Unity must be a need. The people to be unified must all see the need to be unified and leadership should not believe that benevolent decisions ensure unity.

• Tshwete works for the government. He writes in his personal capacity