- Programme Director; Polly Boshielo
- The Phokanoka Family; Bonaficius Phokanoka, Ngoato Moleke, Lentsoana Ivy;
- Premier Stanely Chupwu Mathabatha
- Cde MEC Dr Poppy Ramathuba
- VC Prof Mahlo Mokgalong
- Rachidi Robert -interim chairperson of the Foundation and your fellow Board Members;
- Dickson Masemola;
- Letshesa Tsenoli;
- George Mashamba;
- Joyce Moloi Moropa;
- The Alliance Structures;
- Comrades and Friends;
- Ladies and Gentlemen.
I would like to start by thanking THE LAWRANCE MADIMETJA PHOKANOKA FOUNDATION for inviting all of you who rise and stand for the PHOKANOKA FOUNDATION’s motto: “Uplifting the Downtrodden”: through innovation and science.
It is my singular honour and privilege to gather with you all in the launch and establishment of this Foundation. This Foundation, whose time has come.
Like many of his comrades and like all of us, Comrade Phokanoka is at once a product and creator of history. A child of his environment.
Comrade Lawrence Madimetja Phokanoka was born on the 10th June 1938 at Ga-Phaahla, Makadikwe village of Sekhukhuneland, where his father Jacob Marwale Phokanoka worked as a Primary School Teacher. His mother Selinah Mamashilo was a housewife earning (making income) through dressmaking.
In 1945, at the age of seven (7), he was sent to live with his aunt in Alexandra Township, Johannesburg. One year later he commenced his primary school in Alexandra before transferring to Ga-Nchabeleng village where he continued his studies at Mankopane Tribal School.
In 1953 he was enrolled in Kilnerton High School where he was one of the best achievers and where he got first class in Arithmetic and Mathematics until he successfully completed his matric in 1958.
Kilnerton is where the 2nd President General of the ANC, Sefako Mapogo Makgatho was a teacher, and so by entering Kilnerton, Comrade Phokes joined an educational path of many illustrious leaders before him.
Sefako Mapogo Makgatho started his career as a teacher at the Kilnerton Training Institute, a Methodist School for African children living near Pretoria and Johannesburg. Kilnerton Training Institute is known for some of its illustrious students, including Miriam Makeba, Lilian Ngoyi and Moses Mphahlele. Makgatho taught there until 1906 when he, together with other teachers in the Transvaal, formed one of the first teacher unions, the Transvaal African Teachers’ Association (TATA).
Moses Mphahlele, himself was the Secretary of the African National Congress (ANC) in the Transvaal during the 1920s, and received his education at Kilnerton, where he graduated with a teacher’s certificate. He taught for some time, then became an interpreter. Mweli Skota who published the African Yearly Register, An Illustrated National Biographical Dictionary (Who’s Who) of Black Folks in Africa in 1930, describes him as a political protégé of S. M. Makgatho.
The launch of this Foundation takes place on the 81st anniversary since “Morena boloka setjhaba sa heso”, was composed by Moses Mphahlele during the middle of the 2nd World War (WWII) in 1942.
Morena boloka setjhaba sa heso, (God protect our nation)
O fedise dintwa le matshwenyeho, (End all wars and tribulations / Intervene and end all conflicts)
O se boloke, O se boloke setjhaba sa heso, (Protect us, protect our nation)
Setjhaba sa South Afrika – South Afrika. (Our nation South Africa – South Africa)
This is a call for peace. The leadership at that time felt that “Morena Boloka Setjabasa Heso” is a good companion to ‘Nkosi Sikelela’, and from thence sung them as one anthem.
Allow me take the liberty to explain the history behind our National Anthem and how it evolved over time.
Here are the facts:
- Enoch Sontonga composed the first two stanzas of Nkosi Sikelel’ in 1897 for his school choir.
- The other stanzas to Nkosi Sikelel’, were added by renowned poet laureate Samuel E.K. Mqhayi.
- The Ohlange Institute choir offered a rendition of the song after a closing prayer at the South African Native National Congress meeting in January 1912.
- “Morena boloka setjhaba sa heso” was written by Moses Mphahlele in 1942.
- And the leadership of the African National Congress decided that this Sesotho composition was a good companion to Nkosi Sikelel’.
- And hence they are sung together as one Anthem for the struggle, representing a homology to freedom.
- Whereas Die Stem van Suid-Afrika is a poem written by CJ Langenhoven in May 1918. The music was composed by the Reverend ML de Villiers in 1921.
- The song (Die Stem) was firstly sung on the 31st of May in 1928 as an anthem of the Afrikaaners.
- On 20 April 1994, President Nelson Mandela proclaimed that, in terms of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, the Republic would have two National Anthems. It would be “Nkosi sikelel’ iAfrika” and Die Stem van Suid-Afrika.
- And so a committee was established to work out how these two anthems were going to be arranged and sung.
- The committee responsible for this new composition included Anna Bender, Elize Botha, Richard Cock, Dolf Havemann (Secretary), Mzilikazi Khumalo (Chairman), Masizi Kunene, John Lenake, Fatima Meer, Khabi Mngoma, Wally Serote, Johan de Villiers, and Jeanne Zaidel-Rudolph.
It was this committee that decided to start with:
- Nkosi sikelel’ iAfrika;
- Morena boloka setjhaba sa heso;
- Die Stem;
- And then added the English part, ‘Sounds the call’, by Jeanne Zaidel-Rudolph.
That is where our South African National Anthem comes from.
Let us allow Dr. Verwoed to introduce, in his own words, the Bantu Education Act, as he introduced it in Parliament in 1953:
“I want to remind honourable members that if the native in South Africa today, in any kind of school in existence, is being taught to expect that he will live his adult life under a policy of equal rights, he is making a big mistake”
Father Trevor Huddleston’s interpretation and insight of this Act was as follows:
“There can be no question that of all Apartheid legislation during the past 8 years of Nationalist rule, the Bantu Education Act is by far the most important and by far the most deadly in its effect yet in fact that act passed through both houses (of Parliament) with the greatest ease and with the minimum of opposition except for 1 or 2 of the native representatives.
Today it is being implemented efficiently and very swiftly all over the country.
Yet its consequences will be so grave for the African people that they may take a generation or more to recover from them.”
In Bantu Education, South Africa has devised a unique system,
“the only education system in the world designed to restrict the productivity of its pupils in the national economy to lowly and subservient tasks to render them non-competitive in that economy, to fix them in a tribal world…”
By Dr W.G. McConkey, Former Director of education in Natal, writing in the Natal Daily News, December 1962
A sixteen years old Phokes took part in what can be regarded as his first political activity at Kilnerton Institution when he participated in a triumphant march to the Union Building over the half-yearly examinations for the Form one students in 1954. This march was led by the likes of Joe Nhlanhla, Mandla Tshabalala and others who later became leaders of the ANC.
The 1950s ushered in a decade of rolling mass mobilisation and defiance of the apartheid system. Starting with the Defiance of Unjust Laws Campaign of 1952, the Congress of the People leading to the adoption of the Freedom Charter in 1955; the Treason Trial of 1956 to 1960; and then the Women’s March of 1956; the Alexander Bus Boycott 1957; A-Pound-a-Day National Minimum Wage Campaign is launched following the Bus boycott; and then the Potato Boycott 1959.
It is against that backdrop of mass activism that Comrade Phokanoka enrolled at the University of Forte Hare in 1959 at the age of 21, where he met a young Chris Hani who was also a fresher at the age 17.
Chris Hani formalized his interest in classics and literature when he registered for Latin Studies and English Literature whereas Comrade Phokes registered for a Bachelor of Science Degree in Applied Mathematics and Physics.
Meanwhile at Fort Hare, Phokes visited the library one afternoon and found a book titled, “The World’s Greatest Thinkers”. He paged through the book and found at the end of it, someone, in fact, the last person called Karl Marx.
Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, in 1847, founded in London the world’s First international communist organization, called the Union of Communists, and in 1848 wrote its programme, “The Communist Manifesto” in which they briefly expounded the principal ideas of communism.
He read that Manifesto over and over again. How Phokes wished he could have been introduced to these ideas earlier. He joined the Communist Party in 1959 at the age of 21 and then the ANC a year later.
People form organisations for a purpose.
Comrade Ephraim Mogale (1980s) tells the story of how as a youth he and his friend decided to form a communist party because the apartheid government propaganda expressed its fear of communists. So Ephraim Mogale reasoned that if communism is so bad for our oppressors, then it must be good for the oppressed.
The Communist Party is the vanguard for the working class, i.e. its most conscientious and organised detachment, one that leads the working people in their revolutionary class struggle.
The working class’s political party is not just one of its organisations, but the supreme form of the proletariat’s class organisation. It is called upon to achieve political leadership of all other working-class and all working people’s organisations (trade unions; cultural and educational societies; youth, women’s and other mass associations) without imposing that leadership and operating so that all of them would become convinced that the party specifies with maximum clarity their objectives and the way to implement the latter.
Already in the communist manifesto, Marx and Engels, in characterising the most essential features of communists, noted that theoretically
“they have over the great mass of the proletariat the advantage of clearly understanding the conditions, and the ultimate general results of the proletarian movement.
In 1963, Comrade Phokanoka went into exile. Later he received military and political training in the Soviet Union. He deputised Chris Hani as the Commissar for MK.
From all accounts of some of the combatants who were involved in the Hwange Campaign we learn that it took them the whole day to go down the ravine and cross the Zambezi river into Zimbabwe. Once they were in the Hwange game reserve, they ran out of water and had to shoot an elephant, open its belly to reach for its liver containing some water to quench their thirst. Hwange game park is characterised by underground rivers, hence the non availability of water on the surface. Most of the MK combatants retreated into Botswana, some fell including Basil February and Patrick Molaoa, the last ANCYL elected President before the banning of the ANC. But Comrade Phokanoka was arrested and handed over to the SA Security Branch who detained him in Compol Building, the HQ of the Security Branch in Pretoria in 1967/8.
Comrade Phokanoka together with 18 fellow freedom fighters were formally charged in January, 1969 in the Pietermaritzburg High Court. He was convicted, sentenced to 18 years and incarcerated in Robben Island Prison. For the political prisoners 18 years meant that you had to serve the full sentence to the last day, without parole or remission. In fact, if you were to die during your incarceration the prison system would feel cheated – hence you would be offered access to the best hospital treatment rather than be allowed to die before completing your sentence. In prison Comrade Phokes was driven by a deep sense of urgency. He was forever anxious to fill up every second, every minute, every hour with political education. He was always eager and ready to explain and simplify concepts using illustrative language based on the listener’s or interlocutor’s world of experience. He would explain the laws of motion, which applies with equal force both in society as well as in nature. This law entails process, and specifically states that: “a thing is, and a thing is not, but always in a state of becoming”.
For instance, Comrade Phokes would explain that motion is a function of the working out of opposites. In this regard, he would use the thumb as standing in opposition to the rest of the fingers – and yet together with any of the fingers enables human beings to hold and manipulate minute instruments. This would be one of the numerous ways in which he explains contradictions.
If Comrade Phokanoka engaged you in one of his animated discussions and before conclusion is reached by the time you are locked up in your separate cells, he would not sleep until he completes, in writing, whatever remained to be said about the subject of your discussions. The next morning when you meet he simply gives you the written text and declares that as the conclusion of your discussions of the day before so that you move on to the next and new topic.
He was industrious to a fault. He was loathe to speak about himself when the tasks of the revolution demanded urgent attention.
Comrade Phokes was released from Robben Island Prison in April, 1987, (24) twenty-four years since going into exile and been sentenced to prison.
In 1989 most of the Rivonia Trialists were released from prison after (26) twenty-six years of incarceration. Many of their peers, comrades, relatives, neighbours and friends dropped in to greet and welcome them back into the bigger prison which was the South Africa of that time.
Comrade Peter Mokaba had detailed some young marshalls to maintain order and manage the flow of visitors as well as curious crowds at Comrade Walter Sisulu’s home, in Orlando West. Among the first visitors to the Sisulu home were Professor Zeke Mphahlele, Urbania and Zeph Mothopeng and most importantly, Mrs Glanys Marks who was turned away by the young marshall on the grounds that the Sisulus were resting.
As Mrs Marks and others turned to walk away from the gate I approached the young marshall and suggested that he should first find out from those inside the house whether they would see the old lady or not. His response was curtly. I then informed him that the old lady’s late husband was a leader and mentor to Comrade Walter Sisulu and that his name was Uncle J.B. Marks. The marshall duly informed me that he knows nothing about J.B. Marks but definitely knows something about Karl Marx. Then Peter Mokaba arrived and greeted me with comradely warmth. I, in turn, shared with him what had just transpired and his response was to remind the marshall that ‘you need to know our leaders’.
Two (2) days later I observed a similar occurrence at the home of Comrade Elias Motsoaledi in Mzimhlophe where I found Comrade Phokes standing outside the gate with a suitcase in hand. The marshalls were refusing to let him in. I pleaded with the young marshalls to allow Comrade Phokes to see Comrade Motsoaledi. My motivation was simple: Comrade Phokes was a relative of the Motsoaledis and had actually spent time with Comrade Elias in Robben Island Prison. Prison Warders controlled who they would allow to see Comrade Elias and now he is being subjected to similar censorship at his home as though he is under house arrest.
The marshalls responded by telling me that Comrade Phokes had earlier on informed them that he was a visitor only for him to fetch a suitcase from the car that dropped him and they insisted that they would only let him in after searching his suitcase. I advised them to check with the family first, so they obliged and came back with the clear understanding that Comrade Phokanoka was a relative who was expected to stay for a week at the Motsoaledi home. From the first night Comrade Phokanoka started political education classes for the same marshalls and they valued and were thirsty for such content. At the end of his week-long stay as Comrade Phokes was bidding farewell to the marshalls, they were now asking him to extend his visit by one more week. Such was the impact of his classes.
In furtherance of the legacy of our dear Comrade Phokes and in pursuance of a better understanding to how we may fortify our commitment to the principles that he lived for, we must take the time to remember and we must insist on ruminating over the various levels of strain, support and success that criss-crosses the life of a freedom fighter, a cadre, an honest leader and a revolutionary democrat.
The spirit and teachings of Comrade Phokes, and indeed this launch of THE LAWRANCE MADIMETJA PHOKANOKA FOUNDATION, provides a congenial environment for succeeding generations, whether ANC and Alliance members or not, to imbibe struggle history so that they in turn will be able to avoid repeating the errors of the past.
Comrade Phokes, a symbol himself of the revolution, lived his life in the service of others, and offered an extraordinary contribution to the cause of justice side-by-side with many of the greatest leaders of his generation. Remembered as a giant amongst giants, Comrade Phokes was a leader of our struggle who embodied the very core of what our struggle represented and stood for. He was an elder on whose counsel one could rely, not only for his earnest and dependable moral guidance, but even more so for his extensive, detailed knowledge of political education and his masterful dexterity of modes of discourse.
He was generous of thought and adroit in all things polemic.
Pleasant and passionate, he shone through us, his faculty of followers, who to this day still feed from the fruit of his mind and his fellowship.
Such potent memories of this erudite comrade, noble of character, present to us a void left behind that is possibly less about filling and more about rising to Comrade Phoke’s challenge to all of us. A duty and responsibility to make real, a world worthy of his sentiment of self-effacing humanitarianism. This should be our daily bread.
And so, Programme Director,
May we be upfront, impatient and direct with our sense of urgency when we gather in the name of Comrade Phokes, to pledge to each other, for the sake of all people, that we will not only remember his contribution, but that we will live up to his example, and that we will continue with determination to complete and improve the task to which he and his peers dedicated their lives. Our pledge, right here and right now, no later, must be a call to action for every citizen to be vigilant.
This is a chance for the nation to examine the continuing inequities that are highlighted and exacerbated by evolving crises, relook at fundamental changes that need to be addressed, and what opportunities exist to rebuild our political, economic and our social structures.
More than just a political leader, Comrade Phokes was a teacher – a positive role model who understood the power of dialogue and the impact of education to mould and guide the potential of his students and South Africa’s contemporary leaders.
Therefore, this launch of THE LAWRANCE MADIMETJA PHOKANOKA FOUNDATION, offers us a substantial platform to reflect on the progression of ideology and fortify our collective goals in achieving a better South Africa for all.
Comrade Phokes was shaped and lived his life by the precept in the last paragraph of the Communist Manifesto:
“The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.”
Engels once wrote that Marx and himself remained all their lives in the minority and “felt fine” about it. Periods when the movement of the oppressed class rises to the level of the general tasks of the revolution represent the rarest exceptions in history. For more frequent than victories are the defeats of the oppressed. Following each defeat comes a long period of reaction, which throws the revolutionists back into a state of cruel isolation.
Let each and every set-back or defeat serve as a lesson to never despair but to be resilient and tenacious.
Comrade Phokes saw African nationalism as an important wave within a greater revolutionary current that transcended race, gender and national affiliation. This greater current was communism.
The socialist revolution, which would yield socialism and ultimately communism, was in Comrade Phokes’ formulation, the essence of revolution in the South African context.
In his own words, he asserted that a revolution is the highest form of class struggles and he warned us all of a revolution at the peril of being led by the unled.
For Comrade Phokes, political education generated heightened political consciousness, which, in turn, serves as the surest way to build a complete cadre armed with the necessary revolutionary philosophy to play a proper role in changing their own conditions.
In his own words he would teach that:
“A political education school is like a factory of production, it is like a kitchen where the new is born, and is the most precious task of our revolution. Development of an all-round revolutionary cadre is a key to the success of any revolutionary movement’.”
We learn, from the book entitled, “The Autobiography of an Unknown South African” by
Comrade Naboth Mokgatle who in 1941 attended the CPSA’s Political Education classes for a month, with his contemporary Comrade Harry Gwala, that this political education was a life changing experience. The following will show that, properly approached, political education has a consequential impact on the growth and development of comrades.
“On Saturdays and Sunday, when we were not at school, Harry Gwala and I moved about together, studying or testing each other whether we understood what we had been taught at the party school.
“At school a long range of subjects were taught; political economy, socialism in general, trade unionism, the difference between the Communist Party and the Labour Party, social democracy and communism, the origin of man and society, civics, the meaning of democracy, dictatorship, capitalism and its functions, the workings of markets, monarchy, capitalist republicanism, proletarianism, the meaning of proletariat, the state and people, the rights of people in society and state, the state’s functions towards the people, colonialism, direct and indirect rule, the pricing of manufactured articles, class conflicts and interests in society, just and unjust wars, public speaking, administration, running of offices, drawing up of reports, taking of minutes, filing systems, the rights of people to self-government and self-determination, health, education, revolutions and people’s republics.
We were also taught the meanings of chauvinism, anarchism and anarchists, and discussed national liberatory movements.”
This description helps to shed light on why their generation tended to possess a deep understanding of theory and practice of revolution. In Comrade Phokes’ case, as we shall see shortly, the sharp grasp of revolutionary theory would later help him develop up and coming comrades into giants like himself.
So, today as we strive for political education we need to understand the breadth of the curriculum needed to meet objectives of cadreship development capable of making the necessary and required contribution to the development and growth of both our movement and country. For this we need to put more thought into making enough time available for the effectual political education commensurate with demands of current historical stage in our revolution.
It is even more instructive to note that this education was not just meant for an individual to be politically prepared. It was the aim of the political education to arm individuals with such education so that they in turn could use it to further help with the development of their fellow comrades and thus enhance the aggregate impact on the organisation.
Comrade Mokgatle had this to say about the completion of the political education classes, when the educators wanted to know what they had learnt:
“On the closing day, I don’t know why, I was asked to address the students, and my theme was what I had gained from the school. I remember telling my fellow-students that when I came to the school, I thought I knew half of all we had been taught. But now, I said, the school has helped me to know that I knew only a quarter of it.”
He goes on to say:
“I reminded my fellow-students what one of our teachers had said, that we were there to learn, not only for ourselves but for others who would come to us for advice and help. I said, ‘that when we are back at our homes, we shall remember those words of our teacher and adopt them as a guide in all our endeavours.”
From the above excerpts we learn a great deal about how Comrade Phokes and his peers were formed. We can see the potential of quality education to cover a remarkable range of areas of learning that would turn an ordinary comrade into an effective agent for change. Imperatively, they received the type of education that was not just comprehensive in scope but qualitatively different, enabling sharpening of thought and conception and with that, their effective application to the external world.
Indeed Comrade Phokes went on to carry out the instructions of the teacher that “we were there to learn, not only for ourselves but for others”.
We can observe that Comrade Phokes clearly understood the purpose of political education as being, at once, to comprehend and change the world for the better, to create a critical mass within the organisation so that all cadres emerge equipped with the tools to enable them to dissect the essence of their world in proper ways.
But such was the nature of his teaching that the products of his education would themselves develop into sharp political activists in their own right, using the tools he gave them to develop independent thought and analysis.
This level of theoretical maturation reflected his upbringing in the ANC and the SACP that put a premium on political education and theoretical clarity. Even back then the ANC understood that for democracy to take root in the soil of South Africa the ANC would have to first comprehend the need for internal democracy within its ranks.
Comrade Phokes was no stranger to hardship and therefore his radical perspective and fierce determination, in this context, should be understood to mean a man of fine mettle. Even a world-renowned leader such as Ho Chi Min shared this same understanding of hard conditions:
From Ho Chi Minh’s Prison Diary, “Advice To Myself” (pg 52)
“Without the cold and bleakness of winter
The warmth and splendour of spring could never be.
Misfortunes have steeled and tempered me
And even more strengthened my resolve.”
These are the conditions which he asserted gave rise to his own revolutionary consciousness. To this end, we may cite the Preface to the Introduction to the Critique of Political Economy, to gain deeper insight into the world of Comrade Phokes, where it states:
“It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being. On the contrary, it is their social being that determines their consciousness (Marx and Engels).”
The material conditions of his people is what Comrade Phokes claimed to be the basis of his militancy, which he was famously, or as some would say notoriously, known for. To him foresight and rebelliousness are equivalent.
Comrade Phokes was the embodiment of the dual membership of the SACP and the ANC and he understood the role of the SACP members in mass organisations as practised by leaders such as Moses Kotane, J.B. Marks, Dan Tloome, Flag Boshielo, Mark Shope, Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki, Raymond Mhlaba, Andrew Mlangeni, Elias Motsoaledi, Chris Hani, Peter Nchabeleng, John Kgoana Nkadimeng, to name a few.
In prison a lesson on the universe in which it was explained that the sun does not move, but it is the stars including the earth and the moon, that rotate around the sun, left the attendees incredulous and resolute against attending any more literary classes conducted by the same facilitator. They dubbed the facilitator as a liar with a straight face and vowed never to go back to his classes. They said; ‘the very evidence of their eyes is the sunrise and sunset’. And that their homes never changed direction to confirm rotation around the sun. Of course, all the misunderstanding was cleared once it was explained that they are part of the rotation and there is no way in which they may “step outside” to observe such rotation.
Similarly the Renewal of the ANC cannot be achieved in isolation and apart from the renewal of the SACP and COSATU.
Historically, elections in the ANC serve as a mechanism for strengthening and renewing the organisation in the context of the challenges and tasks that would have been identified through this democratic decision-making process. Elective conferences provide an opportunity to elect a leadership best suited to the historical epoch. Thus when leadership is elected, it is based on the tasks that lie ahead. It is not the predetermined result of slates, as has been the case in recent history.
Yet slates have become one of the harmful post-1994 viruses that have crept into the bloodstream of the ANC. Slates steal away the voice of members through buying of votes and treating the ordinary membership as voting fodder, serving no other purpose than to corrupt the organisation.
Slates represent a deformed character of the organisation in which factions and groups motivated by personal gain scramble with no holds barred for leadership positions.
Taken to its conclusion, we cannot but infer that slates serve to push away members from the ANC and to disorganise it, destroying the unity that has stood it in good stead for more than one hundred years.
Members should remain loyal to the organisation, not to individuals, and should seek to enhance its prestige among the people. This prestige is a function of and it depends on what we do and/or what we say as individual members. This is all the more reason we always guard against the pernicious habit of – no matter how well-intended at first – allowing a cult of personality to develop in our midst, characterised by the practice of idolising leadership. Leadership is a reflection of an organisation and must not be personalised.
We must appreciate and understand the role of individuals in the organisation, but must always bear in mind that the organisation is more than the sum total of its individual members. As such slates are also antithetical to the principle of open and free debate and represent a degenerate version of the organisation in which factions and groups less motivated by what the ANC stands for use all manner of surreptitious means to gain leadership positions.
Slates are odious because the victorious factions spend time after conferences meting out a victor’s justice; while those seen to have been on the opposite side during the conference are made to pay the price in many ways, including marginalisation. In the process, organisational work suffers.
Governance in the public sector also suffers because the winning slates invariably overlook individuals perceived to be sympathetic to the losing ones. Part of punishing such individuals is removing them from work or depriving them of opportunities irrespective of their ability to excel in their duties; an act that ultimately undermines transformation and development.
In spite of voting in our conferences being by secret ballot there are those who pretend to know how delegates voted and on the basis of this single out certain individuals for marginalisation.
One of the irreparably harmful effects of slates is the hollowing out of the principle of non-racialism. After a hundred years of existence the composition of the ANC’s membership seems to give the lie to its principle of non-racialism.
Slates have eaten away at the heart of the organisation, leaving a trail of divisions, vengeance, internecine feuds and mutual mistrust, much to the mortal detriment of the ANC as an organic whole.
The great Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping reminds us that “the arch enemy to unity is complacency and conceit”. Closer to home within the Tri-Partite Alliance the enemy to unity is the ease with which factions form and mutate over time.
Factions are intolerant of dissent and tend to suppress debates. There can never be anything dubbed a “good faction”. This is a label adopted by factions that appropriate the President of the ANC and claim to have his ears and back. This is utter nonsense. All comrades must strive to be in the ANC and not in a faction because if one is in a faction and persuades another comrade to quit his faction, it simply means one is recruiting for a faction rather than the ANC.
History records that following his release from prison and the 1994 democratic elections Comrade Phokanoka was employed by the Limpopo Department of Safety and Security as a community liaison officer. Advocate Seth Nthai served as the MEC for the same Department, and narrates the story of how Comrade Phokes refused to accept his first salary on the grounds that it was too much and that he did not join MK for a salary.
Eventually he reluctantly accepted the cheque and later bought himself a motorbike model that he had seen and rode in the Soviet Union. Of course, he was to be involved in an accident the first day he took delivery of the motorbike. Following pleas from a number of comrades Phokanoka was persuaded to sell the motorbike.
In 1993 Comrade Phokes received most votes to top the Limpopo list of Province to National candidates or nominees. Comrade Phokanoka withdrew his candidature to Parliament and elected to serve as the first Political Education Officer for the ANC in Limpopo.
Comrade Phokes lived by Rule 4.15 of the ANC Constitution:
‘I … solemnly declare that I will abide by the aims and objectives of the ANC as set out in the Constitution, the Freedom Charter and other duly adopted policy positions, that I am joining the organisation voluntarily and without motives of material advantage or personal gain that I agree to respect the Constitution and the structures and to work as a loyal member of the organisation, that I will place my energies and skills at the disposal of the organisation and carry out tasks given to me, that I will work towards making the ANC an even more effective instrument of liberation in the hands of the people, and that I will defend the unity and integrity of the organisation and its principles, and combat any tendency towards disruption and factionalism’.
As I conclude, let me leave you with the words of Randall Swingler when he said:
“It is easy to lead in the open when the issue is clear:
These things are the rewards, that rarely appear.
What is not so easy is to lead in the dark,
From moment to moment knowing just where the spark
And just how strong, may be struck. For the real work
Is the work that no one sees, and earns no remark”.
And I thank you for your attention.
