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 million 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 formal 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 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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