Msimang admits that the SACP played a big role in the liberation struggle, and mentions leaders such as Slovo, JB Marks and Moses Kotane. But its current crop of leaders are just not at that level. “If the communist party exists to think for the ANC, forget it. I’ll leave the ANC. I don’t want anybody to think for me,” he says. The SACP blindly regurgitates classical Marxist doctrine to devise a story for post-apartheid SA — a multi-stage journey to prosperity, dubbed the national democratic revolution, he says. “They repeat it, but they have no idea what they are talking about because a lot of them don’t even think they want to be socialists — they think it’s some phase, or strategy.”
Sam Mkokeli’s article I would give Zuma his comeuppance, says veteran first appeared in BDlive today published by Business Day.
Further excerpts
OH, the old man, so intelligent,” says Mavuso Msimang, as he talks about former African National Congress (ANC) president Oliver Tambo, who is credited with holding the movement together through decades of tough operations in exile. Tambo is undoubtedly one of the major influences in Msimang’s life, especially for his leadership style and techniques. He speaks with pride as he recounts the lessons he learnt from the ANC leader. Msimang is one of the ANC elders who can’t sit quietly while things fall apart: from criticising the visa regulations fiasco created by the Department of Home Affairs, where he was once director-general, to taking on President Jacob Zuma by asserting that the ANC is a broad church built by the hard toil of religious men and women, among others, who today still carry the responsibility of criticising the party.
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He is dismissive of the perception that the SACP is the “vanguard” in the alliance — the brains behind the revolution in the past and the ANC as a governing party now. “Now come to where we are. The only justification for the existence of the SACP, since they would never contest elections, since they don’t bring any resources, by nature they always are a small thing — they think for us.” He says there’s a need for a re-examination of the alliance, to redefine “the rules of engagement”. “I can understand Cosatu (Congress of South African Trade Unions), I really understand Cosatu, with its network into labour. They actually recruited people into the ANC. They assist in election (campaigning). What is the communist party doing other than being a thinker for us?”