Induction, Part 7a
The Movement:
ANC, Leagues, SANCO, Women
In “The State and Revolution”,
Lenin wrote that democracy, and only democracy, could train people to think
together, take decisions together, and act collectively. In the same work, he
also wrote that democracy is not freedom. Democracy imposes the will of the
majority on the minority and that is not freedom, said Lenin. Democracy is part
of the road to freedom, but it is not the last part of that road.
In the South African democratic dispensation there are many
more-or-less-democratic institutions. In this and the next two parts of this
Induction course, we are going to consider both the autonomous Mass Democratic
Movement, including COSATU and the ANC, and also the state’s democracy,
national, provincial and local, and including Ward Committees, School Governing
Bodies, Community-Police Forums, and other such statutory entities.
In this item, we briefly define, for Induction purposes, the
ANC, its Leagues, and SANCO.
The ANC is an individual-membership mass organisation. At
its 100th anniversary on January 8th 2012 it had one
million members. By the beginning of 2013 it had 1.2 members. Since the 52nd
National Congress (Polokwane, 2007) it has approximately doubled in membership.
The African National Congress is the liberation movement
that incorporates the class alliance between all of the oppressed classes,
including the working class. The African National Congress exists to carry out
the National Democratic Revolution. The ANC is also in practice a party within
the South African constitution, and it has been the ruling party since the
first universal-franchise election in 1994.
The ANC has allies, but it is not a federation. Nor is it
part of a federation.
The ANC Women’s League was founded in 1948, five years after
the admission of women into the ANC in 1943. The ANCWL is an ANC section for
women and not a women’s movement for all women.
The ANC Youth League was in difficulty and is now under a
National Task Team. The ANC Youth League is part of the ANC and does not have a
life apart from the ANC. The Youth League normally has a fully developed
structure from branch level up to national.
ANC Veteran’s
League
The ANC Veteran’s League is for people with 40 years of
unbroken membership in the ANC. It does not organise old people.
SANCO is the National Civic Organisation. A Civic
Association is a type of mass organisation that arose organically from South
African history. The Civics belong to their members, in the localities, and
they are therefore the natural home of the local petty-bourgeoisie, whose
environment is always local. SANCO is a full member of the National Democratic
Revolutionary Alliance.
The Women’s
Movement
There is no mass-membership national democratic Women’s
Organisation in South Africa that individual women can belong to, simply as
women. The Progressive Women’s Movement is, according to its own documents,
“not a formal structure”. In practice this means that it is not democratic. It
has no democratic constitution.
The mass-membership national democratic Women’s Organisation
remains the missing fifth Alliance partner. It is the necessary component of
the NDR that has been completely neglected.
Please read the attached statement of the ANC National
Executive Committee (NEC). It can serve as an example of how the leadership of
the movement views the organic structure and relationship between the many
parts of the movement.
- The above is to
introduce an original reading-text: ANC NEC Statement following meeting
held on the 17 May 2013.
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