It has become fashionable for universities and think tanks to host annual memorial lectures in the name of Nelson Mandela. The University of South Africa (UNISA), for instance, recently invited Mr Joel Netshitenzhe to present its 2016 Mandela memorial lecture. Subsequently, the Sunday Independent printed a condensed version of this lecture under the headline ‘Reconciliation facts’ (Sunday Independent, 13 July 2016, p13). Mr Netshitenzhe is a high-ranking member of the ANC national executive committee and had been in a leadership position in the Presidency until 2009.  He currently heads a think tank named the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection (MISTRA).

As his central theme, Mr Netshitenzhe spoke about the politics of reconciliation and compromise that have been a cornerstone of the ANC political tradition since its inception. He told his audience: “Reconciliation was an instrument of revolutionary change”. What historical evidence is there to support this assertion that successful socio-political revolutions flow from reconciling the interests of classes locked in relentless warfare? There is no answer to this question in Netshitenzhe’s defensive lecture which is replete with obfuscation and falsification. But what ‘revolutionary change’ does this leading ANC theorist envision? Can it be anything else but their misleading and hollow slogan of a ‘National Democratic Revolution (NDR)’?

It is worth remembering that in the 1980s, the ANC bombarded the oppressed and exploited activists with slogans such as: “negotiation is another site of struggle”.  Sections of liberals, clerics, academics and media outlets aided them to popularise this lie, all aimed at masking the political deal the ANC was clinching with imperialism and the white supremacist regime.

Leaders of the ANC, be it Nelson Mandela or Oliver Tambo, followed the politics of reconciliation and compromise to its logical end. Thus the ANC and Mandela diverted our struggle for freedom into the political sell-out that culminated in a bogus constituent assembly and a constitution that safeguards the powers, theft and privileges that a rich minority enjoys at the expense of the oppressed and exploited majority. These middle class opportunists diluted and restricted the objectives of our struggle to anti-apartheid campaigns which stood in direct contrast to our demand for unfettered, full democratic rights in a unitary state. Instead of sweeping away tribalism, the ANC has reinforced the rule of tribal chiefs, who are policing the landlessness of the peasant masses.

Nethsithenze’s lecture illustrates the extent to which ANC apologists have intensified their dirty tricks to sanitise the programme and history of our liberation struggle. Such distortions and falsehoods must be unmasked in order to recover the genuine revolutionary traditions of our struggle; a rich heritage that has been preserved in the writings of the Unity Movement of South Africa and APDUSA for the benefit of new generations of militants. Youth radicalised in waves of ongoing protests must assimilate the lessons from this revolutionary heritage as they begin to search for an anti-capitalist transitional programme.