MASILO LEPURU | Mashinini’s words ring true today – ‘the ANC is defunct, and the PAC is dead’

January 27 marked the birthday of Tsietsi Mashinini, who in terms of South African history and politics, symbolises the idea of black power.

Black power, as embodied by the activists of 1976, was an important challenge to white power as epitomised by the apartheid regime. The dialectic of black power and white power as historical and political antagonists in South African history and politics since the arrival of European conquerors in 1652, reached its apex with the 1976 confrontation.

While the movement of black power, as symbolised by the leadership of Mashinini and his comrade Khotso Seatlholo, did not lead to the ultimate defeat of white power, it has contributed significantly to the problem of ideology and political vision in South African politics and history. Ideologically speaking, this black power movement as spearheaded by Mashinini and Seatlholo, with the significant contribution of many black women, was a continuation of the Azanian political tradition.

This tradition was pioneered by the adoption of the name Azania in the 1960s by the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC) under the leadership of Robert Sobukwe. This famous adoption was made with the view to distinguish the PAC from the ANC and its alliance in the Congress of the People, which adopted the Freedom Charter in 1955.

In essence, these dissimilar adoptions embodied the core of the national question in “South Africa”, namely to whom does the land belong? According to the Azanian tradition of Sobukwe and Steve Biko, Azania is the rightful name for the territory now called SA and this territory belongs solely to the indigenous people. The congress tradition on the other hand claimed that “SA belongs to all who live in it, black and white”. The black power movement of Mashinini in line rejected this.

It is in this sense that black power and the Azanian political tradition converged in 1976 under the leadership of Mashinini and Seatlholo.

While Mashinini was in exile, he famously declared that “the ANC is defunct, and the PAC is dead”. While the historical context of the 1970s may be different, it is interesting to analyse its significance in post-apartheid SA.

When Mashinini made this declaration, the apartheid regime had already declared its own war against the liberation movement. The apartheid regime was neither defunct nor dead. Its military and political power were on full display and viciously applied against the brave efforts of the indigenous conquered people to resolve the historic injustice of land dispossession and the restoration of the Azanian self-determination and sovereignty. The current historical context is both similar and different.

The historical context as far as the Azanian political tradition of Sobukwe and Biko is concerned, is still one of white supremacy. The only difference is one of regime rather than structure. The structure remains one of white settler colonialism as characterised by land dispossession. The regime is no longer that of apartheid but of post-apartheid under the congress tradition of the ANC.

The Azanian tradition of the PAC and BCM lost to the congress tradition of the ANC in 1994. But what is the position of the PAC and the ANC today as we remember the birth of Mashinini? Can we still argue as Mashinini did in the 1970s that indeed the ANC is defunct and the PAC is dead? As far as the possible attainment of political power in parliament to implement the political vision of the Azanian tradition of Sobukwe and Biko, we can confidently agree with Mashinini that the PAC is as good as dead.

While I disagree with this vision (aligning myself with Anton Lembede’s uncompromising vision of Afrika for the Afrikans), it is nonetheless the vision of the Azanian political tradition of Sobukwe and Biko. With the formation of the MK party, we can also agree with Mashinini that indeed the ANC is defunct.

Factionalism has rendered both the PAC and the ANC dead-end as far as the pursuit of black power in conquered Azania is concerned.

While there are those who defend the value of the formation of the MK party under the banner of Radical Economic Transformation, it should be clear to those who are committed to the politics of black power that we need a more radical alternative to what African politics in the form of party politics is offering today.

•  Lepuru is a researcher and founding director of the Institute for Kemetic and Marcus Garvey Studies