The African National Congress THE FOLLOWING are extracts from an article which appeared in the July and August, 1985 issues of Sechaba, the journal of the ANC. The article is signed by Mzala and is a response to criticism levelled, mainly by AZAPO, a member organisation of the National Forum, at the Freedom Charter which is the basic programme of the ANC. The article is entitled "The Freedom Charter is our lodestar'.
Congress of the People, which drew up the Freedom Charter, and equally to disregard the overwhelming democratic opinion of the mass movement at present taking shape in South Africa, for them to dissociate themselves from those solemn demands for people's democracy, is to advocate, at best, opportunism and, at worst functionalism. ...
Yet for the advocates of the Azanian Manifesto this political stand of the Freedom Charter is not revolutionary enough, for they, as the masters of the theory of socialism, want to bring about a socialist workers' republic in 'Azania'! Says the general secretary of Azapo in the October issue of Drum magazine:
The problem with the Charter seems to be that it is co-optable by the capitalist structure. The Manifesto
Criticism of the Freedom Charter has lately been coming from a Committee calling itself the 'National Forum' and launched by certain individuals in South Africa as an organisational opposition to the United Democratic Front (UDF). At its founding conference, the National Forum adopted a number of resolutions as well as a Manifesto of the Azanian People;' [see page 23] which is meant to be an alternative document to the Freedom Charter. As reported by the Rand Daily Mail of June 13, 1983: * ... a separate bid for unity has been started by the National Forum Committee, made up largely of Black Consciousness groups ... The National Forum, according to Mr Mkhabela of AZAPO, is not an organisation but only a committee intended to facilitate joint discussions among Black groups."
At the end of this National Forum Conference (there have been others ever since to ratify the Manifesto') the conference adopted the 'Manifesto of the Azanian People' (which we shall hereafter refer to as the Azanian Manifesto), identifying 'racial capitalism' as the real enemy of the oppressed people of South Africa, and pledging to work for the establishment of an anti-racist, socialist republic. Readers of the South African press will remember how even The Pace magazine issue of September, 1983 (a magazine that does very well in promoting showbiz but which dismally fails to give one a good political portrait of South Africa) commented about the 'historic' significance of the adoption of this Azanian Manifesto:
*The oppressed people now have two documents setting out what the struggle is all about: the Charter on the one hand, and the Manifesto, which follows the Black Consciousness line, on the other." 16
One cannot help marvelling at the inability of this magazine to comprehend the significance of the Freedom Charterin the history of South Africa...
The organisers of the National Forum Conference will most probably tell us that they were organising a forum for discussion and to create unity of the oppressed people against the Botha Constitution and the Koorhof Genocide Bills. (1)There is not the slightest doubt that any attempt at unifying the oppressed people for a determined struggle against the fraudulent constitution and death bills is a good thing. No one is arguing against the fact that the building of unity is and remains the paramount task for all politically conscious South Africans irrespective of their ideological persuasion. But the banner of 'Unity' must not be a false signboard; the cry for unity must not be made to conceal disuniting activities and intentions, which, it is hoped, the masses of our people will not be able to see.
Now, at the height of the efforts to form a united front of lovers of freedom and democracy to oppose the Botha constitutional fraud, when the masses of our people were rallying around the Freedom Charter, when everyone was moved by the desire to preserve people's unity against oppression and to demonstrate the political strength and the moral prestige of our freedom struggle in the formation of the United Democratic Front - at this very time, the National Forum Committee suddenly, without the slightest apparent need, called for a conference to adopt some Manifesto of the Azanian People.' Can such an effort be called unity?
As for the critics of the Freedom Charter, for them to flout the decisions of a truly representative historic of the Azanian people is socialist. The Charterists have a block ... they get into a dead end street.'
Yes, it is true, as we shall demonstrate in greater detail later, unlike the Azanian Manifesto (which pretends to be socialist), the Freedom Charter is based on the historic realities of our country, and one of those realities is that all Black people, workers and non-workers, are nationally oppressed and are consequently involved in a national democratic revolution. The Freedom Charter thus asserts the necessity for the creation of a people's government as a principled alternative to racist apartheid rule ...
Perhaps the protagonists of the Azanian Manifesto are sincere socialists and not ideologically lost political bandits' as Zinzi Mandela called them -however, their probable sincerity is not the point. We know of a lot of socialists in South Africa who have a great respect for our Freedom Charter, and equally (if not more than anybody else who fight for its realisation. The point is, why do the "socialist' gentlemen [sic] of Azania scorn a democratic programme for a people's republic? Why do they (for the sake of socialism) want to skip the national democratic revolution, skipping the political interests of the people as a whole? ...
The real essence of the present phase of our revolution is not winning of socialism, but, as the Freedom Charter reflects, the winning of people's democracy, a true republic with power to the people, all the
The so-called Botha' constitution was adopted in September 1983 and endorsed by a referendum of the white population. It established a presidential system of separate parliaments for the Coloured and Indian population. The Koornhof proposals concerned Blacks* so-called right of residence in white areas (see page 24)
International Viewpoint' No 46 February 13, 1984.
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people! The drafters of the Azanian Manifesto fail to see the revolutionary significance of this step, that is, the significance of the struggle for true national independence and self-determination. Nelson Mandela said in an article entitled Freedom in our lifetime' and published in June, 1956 in the ANC journal Liberation:
*Whilst the Charter proclaims democratic changes of a far-reaching nature, it is by no means a blueprint for a socialist state but a programme for the unification of various classes and groupings amongst the people on a democratic basis. Under socialism the workers hold state power. They and the peasants own the means of production, the land, the factories, and the mills. All production is for use and not for profit. The Charter does not contemplate such profound economic and political changes. Its declaration, The People Shall Govern!' visualises the transfer of power not to any single social class but to all the people of this country, be they workers, peasants, professional men or petty-bourgeoisie.
It is true that in demanding the nationalisation of the banks, the gold mines and the land, the Charter strikes a fatal blow at the financial and gold-mining monopolies and farming interests that have for centuries plundered the country and condemned its people to servitude. But such a step is imperative because the realisation of the Charter is inconceivable, in fact impossible, unless and until these monopolies are smashed ana the national wealth of the country turned over to the people. To destroy these monopolies means the termination of the exploitation of vast sections of the populace by mining kings and land barons and there will be a general rise in the living standards of the people. It is precisely because the Charter offers immense opportunities for an overall improvement in the material conditions of all classes and groups that it attracts such wide support.
Even in South Africa, where national oppression seems to dictate to all oppressed people the inevitable need to unite and agree on what to fight for, there are always remarkably different ideological trends. And our movement owes its present shape and position to the bitter struggle it has fought over the years (even within itself for ideological clarity against narrow national opportunism, liberalism, ultra-left Trotskyist childishness, and so on. It sounds incredible, but our real life and actual history has meant exactly this ideological struggle. struggie.
Chief Luthuli once said, in a special presidential message at the end of 1955:
*Faced as we are with the battle for freedom it seems a wise stand to say that the African National Congress should not dissipate its energies by indulging in internal ideological feuds - a fight on 'isms.' It is not practical and logical, however, to expect Congress to be colourless ideologically. She must in some way define or re-define her stand... This is exactly how it should be! The struggle against opportunism
It is this political and ideological cohesion of our democratic movement which makes us stand as the leaders of all others, a position which is inconceivable without an irreconcilable struggle against political opportunism. This democratic movement that is developing in South Africa, inspired by the Freedom Charter, will retain and further develop its militant unity by also opposing opportunist ideological trends anci correcting political mistakes at the level of the theory of our revolution and at that of practical politics, whether these are committed with
Procession led by Walter Sisulu of the ANC, 1952 (DR)
International Viewpoint 30 September 1985
good or ill intentions (it is often said that the road to hell is paved with good intentions).
"Socialism' is undoubtedly the most fashionable slogan at the present period, for even our liberal "friends,' and narrow nationalists understand that it is the position one adopts to socialism, generally speaking, that differentiates a progressive from a reactionary in all countries. But it is very important for our theoretically-grounded organisers to give our people a concrete understanding of the course our revolution will follow, that is, the stages it will necessarily pass through. It is such an understanding, based on the theory of the South African revolution, that will make it clear that the political situation in South Africa does not by any means make the question of the socialist revolution the immediate task of the struggle.
It will make clear, instead, that our immediate aim is to win the objectives of the national revolution expressed in the Freedom Charter, more particularly to achieve the national emancipation of the Black people and to destroy the political and economic power of the racist ruling class.
Anti-Communist hysteria
There must be some strange mechanism in the thinking of the imperialists which makes them believe that once they have described something as 'Communist' then all members of the human race will want to run away from it. The racists of South Africa have always thought like this. When in 1956, the Pretoria government arrested 156 of our leaders and charged them with high treason, arguing that the Freedom Charter was a document inspired by Moscow, they hoped they would scare the masses of our people from the Freedom Charter. The masses, being oppressed by imperialism and racism, never moved in the hoped-for direction; on the contrary, they are irresistibly attracted by the Freedom Charter and almost everything that our enemies hate. In the end, the Treason Trial failed to diagnose Communism in the Freedom Charter.
The Communist bogey has never deterred our people from upholding the principles of the Freedom Charter and the democratic movement led by the AN and its allies. Contemporary events show irrefutably that, slowly but surely, our politically conscious people are marching with the banner of the Freedom Charter held high above their heads - holding high the banner of people's demo18
To a people ple canot cracy. Such a people's movement is invincible! Such a people cannot be deceived! Such a people cannot be stopped in their tracks by some 'inspired by Moscow' scare gimmicks.
Why on earth do our enemies and opponents imagine that they are the only ones who know what Communism really is? Why do they think they are
Freedom THE Freedom Charter was adopteu on June 26, 1955 by the People's Congress representing the African National Congress, the South African Indian Congress, the Coloured People's Congress, the South African Congress of Trade Unions and the Congress of Democrats. The following consists of major extracts from the Charter.
*** • We, the people of South Africa, declare for all our country and the world to know: - that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, Black and white, and that no government can justly claim authority unless it is based on the will of all the people; - that our people have been robbed of their birthright to land, liberty and peace by a form of government founded on injustice and inequality; - that our country will never be prosperous or free until all our people live in brotherhood, enjoy. ing equal rights and opportunities; - that only a democratic state, based on the will of all the people, can secure to all their birthright without distinction of colour, race,
And therefore we, the people of South Africa, Black and white together - equals, countrymen and brothers - adopt this Freedom Charter. And we pledge ourselves to strive together, sparing neither strength nor courage, until the democratic changes set out here have been won. The people shall govern! Every man and woman shall have the right to vote for and to stand as a candidate for all bodies which make laws;
All people shall be entitled to take part in the administration of the country;
The rights of the people shall be the same, regardless of race, colour or sex;
All the bodies of minority rule, advisory boards, councils and authorities shall be replaced by the only ones who store Marxist-
Leninist literature on the bookshelves?
Why do they imagine that the people of South Africa do not know what the
SACP is and what it stands for? Do our enemies and the opportunists alike imagine that the members of the ANC do not understand the basis of the alliance with the SACP?
Charter democratic organs of self-government. All national groups shall have equal rights! There shall be equal status in the bodies of state, in the courts and in the schools for all national groups and races;
All people shall have equal right to use their own languages, and to develop their own folk culture and customs;
All national groups shall be protected by law against insults to their race and national pride;
The preaching and practice of national, race or colour discrimination and contempt shall be a punishable crime.
people shall share in the country's wealth!
All apartheid laws and practices shall be set aside. The people shall share in the country's wealth! The national wealth of our country, the heritage of all South Africans, shall be restored to the people;
The mineral wealth beneath the soil, the banks and monopoly industry shall be transferred to the ownership of the people as a whole;
All other industry and trade shall be controlled to assist the well-being of the people;
All people shall have equal rights to trade where they choose, to manufacture and to enter all trades, crafts and professions. The land shall be shared among those who work it! Restrictions of land shall be ended, and all the land redivided amongst those who work it, to banish famine and land hunger ... All shall enjoy equal human rights! The law shall guarantee to all their rights to speak, to organise, to meet together, to punish, to preach, to worship and to educate their children... •..
Let all who love their people and their country now say, as we say here: *These freedoms we will fight for, side by side, throughout our lives, until we have won our liberty!'
International Viewpoint 30 September 1985