Former president Thabo Mbeki has challenged ANC members to improve their "capacity to think" and visualise concepts to deal with SA’s problems.

ANC members had to think practically about the future and how to achieve the party’s objectives meant to address the legacy of the past.

“Shouting slogans” was not enough, he said.

He was speaking at the end of the Western Cape ANC’s two day extended interim provincial committee meeting in Cape Town.

Mbeki said it was the ANC’s mission to eradicate colonial and apartheid legacies and it was important for party members to understand these challenges.

ANC member everywhere should ask themselves “are we fit for the job?”.

“Do we have the strength, the capacity and everything else to discharge that responsibility, the eradication of that legacy?

“The thinking comrades; the visualisation and the conceptualisation of the actions that need to be taken. If you say we must eradicate the legacy of colonialism and apartheid with regards to education; what does that mean?”

Mbeki, who is considered an intellectual in the ANC, said he struggled to give practical answers to some of the problems they want to address.

“We know, for instance, that university students have been saying for some years now, quite correctly, that one of the things we must do, we must decolonise the university curriculum.

“But when you sit down and discuss how it is going to be done, then there are problems. Let’s decolonise the teaching of mathematics. I agree we must do it. But when you ask me practically what do we do, I wouldn’t be able to answer that question.”

Mbeki said that during the two day meeting they grappled with the question of renewal, asking themselves: What does renewal mean, what is the next step?

“Anybody saying [for example] Thabo must become the next chair of the ANC in the province, would that be renewal? I doubt it.”

He said the meeting identified factionalism as one of the province’s problems and agreed to "make factions irrelevant".

“The task we have set ourselves is to strengthen the ANC so that practically it can play this role to help us achieve the changes that are required,” he said.

TimesLIVE

Mbeki, who is considered an intellectual in the ANC, said he struggled to give practical answers to some of the problems they want to address.

“We know, for instance, that university students have been saying for some years now, quite correctly, that one of the things we must do, we must decolonise the university curriculum.

“But when you sit down and discuss how it is going to be done, then there are problems. Let’s decolonise the teaching of mathematics. I agree we must do it. But when you ask me practically what do we do, I wouldn’t be able to answer that question.”

Mbeki said that during the two day meeting they grappled with the question of renewal, asking themselves: What does renewal mean, what is the next step?

“Anybody saying [for example] Thabo must become the next chair of the ANC in the province, would that be renewal? I doubt it.”

He said the meeting identified factionalism as one of the province’s problems and agreed to "make factions irrelevant".

“The task we have set ourselves is to strengthen the ANC so that practically it can play this role to help us achieve the changes that are required,” he said.

TimesLIVE