WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.
Original Post Date: 2008-11-11 Time: 14:00:07 Posted By: Jan
By Patrick Laurence
Mbhazima Shilowa, convener of the national convention that resolved to establish a new party in opposition to the ANC, has spoken boldly of the party toppling the ANC from the commanding heights of government in next year’s general and provincial elections.
Shilowa was no doubt seeking to inspire and energise those who have already committed themselves to the new party – provisionally named the Congress of the People (COP) – for the huge task ahead.
He was no doubt also striving to attract recruits from those South Africans who either sympathise with the new party’s opposition to the direction taken by the present ANC leadership corps or who, for one reason or another, did not vote in the 2004 general election,
Shilowa had reason, however, to whisper to himself the words uttered by Lao-Tse, the Taoist sage, more than 2 000 years ago: Even the hardest journey must begin with a first step.
He and Mosiuoa Lekota, his political associate, must know that Jacob Zuma, whatever his perceived failures of judgment and moral deficiencies, will fight tooth and nail to defeat them as decisively as he trounced Thabo Mbeki at the ANC’s national conference in Polokwane last December.
For that reason, it is vitally important that the leadership of the new party not lose sight of the strategically exciting option that emerged during the deliberations at the recent national convention: the prospect of the COP assuming leadership of a grand coalition of opposition parties and leading it to victory over the once seemingly indomitable ANC in the 2014 election after a baptism of fire in next year’s poll.
One of the striking features of the national convention was the warm welcome accorded to representatives of an array on opposition parties, including the Democratic Alliance (DA) , the Independent Democrats (ID), the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) and the United Democratic Movement (UDM).
DA leader Helen Zille, who has skilfully led a six-party governing coalition in Cape Town’s city council since March 2006, was loudly cheered when she told the national convention that coalition-building was essential to any quest to oust the ANC as ruling party.
The new party must avoid the mistake of seeking short-term advantage by concentrating its verbal fire in the coming election on the DA instead of the ANC. The new party must convince the electorate that it has the capacity and courage to lead a grand opposition coalition government by tackling the ANC head-on.
Frans Cronje, of the Institute of Race Relations, observes in an article on the institute’s website that the new party will probably win votes from the DA in next year’s election. But any gains at the DA’s expense should be a bonus of its campaign against the ANC, and not the product of an assault on the DA.
Interestingly – and probably significantly – Zuma referred mockingly to the new party as “a black DA” in an election rally in Soweto the day after the national convention.
Zuma, recalling that Lekota had talked of serving “divorce papers” on the ANC, accused him of entering into a marriage contract with Zille before the divorce had been finalised.
Zuma’s main purpose was clear: given the ANC’s demonisation of the DA as a reactionary party, he was trying to paint the new party with the same brush.
He may well have had another motive: to embarrass the Lekota-Shilowa partnership and thereby prevent them from entering into a grand coalition with Zille as well as ID leader Patricia de Lille, IFP leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi and UDM leader Bantu Holomisa.
The implication is that beneath the contempt Zuma expressed for the “black DA” was fear of the grand coalition, from which flowed his attempt to forestall the inchoate idea from germinating into a tangible reality.
The ANC’s typecasting of the new party as a “black DA” and its leaders as ideological apostates flirting with “the enemy” has another dimension: a concerted endeavour to prevent the new party from using any title or emblem that might link it to the pre-Zuma ANC and thereby to former leaders of the calibre of Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo, Albert Luthuli and John Dube.
Hence the ANC’s present opposition to the new party’s move to register for the pending elections as the COP.
The ANC insists, understandably, that the Congress of the People is associated with the Freedom Charter, a seminal ANC ideological declaration adopted in 1955 at the Congress of the People in Kliptown, Soweto.
There is another side to the debate, however.
Lekota has argued that the Zuma-led ANC has contravened fundamental tenets of the Freedom Charter and has thus compromised its claim to be the guardian of the traditions associated with it.
One of the pivotal clauses of the Freedom Charter declares: “All shall be equal before the law.” A corollary to it is that no one is above the law.
Lekota argues that by seeking a “political solution” to Zuma’s legal problems – which are, of course, the possible renewal of the charges of corruption against him – the ANC has exhibited its contempt for the rule of law.
The same ratiocination applies to Lekota’s contention that ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe’s castigation of Constitutional Court justices as counter-revolutionaries violates the spirit of the Freedom Charter, as it invokes images of “revolutionary justice” by firing squad rather than the rule of law.
These contentions lead to the conclusion that the new party has as much right to the history leading to the adoption of the Freedom Charter in 1955 as the post-Polokwane ANC.
Buthelezi offered another perspective in a letter delivered on his behalf to the national convention.
The letter highlighted his blood ties with Pixley ka Seme, one of the founders of the ANC, and his friendship with Luthuli and Bishop Alpheus Zulu, both ANC stalwarts, and added: “No one owns the ANC copyright or has a monopoly on the wisdom, the inspiration and the soul of our liberation movement.”