ANC must adapt or die

114 YEARS ON: FUNCTIONING MUNICIPALITIES, ECONOMY THAT WORKS KEY

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POWER SHARING. President Cyril Ramaphosa, centre, celebrates during the ANC's 114th anniversary at the Moruleng dtadium in Rustenburg on Saturday.

(AFP)

The failure of the ANC to adapt and change saw it lose elections for the first time in 2024. It was shocked and now has to share power with its political nemeses, the DA.

The ANC is widely known throughout South Africa, and maybe the world, but the essence of this organisation has been lost over the 114 years of its existence.

Initially, this organisation was known as the South African Native National Congress (SANNC) and it was founded by enlightened Africans who wielded some influence in their communities.

This included preachers, teachers, chiefs and well-learned, influential black people.

An argument could be made that most of them were Christianised Africans who had received missionary education and were determined to make a difference in their communities.

The brain behind the historic meeting in 1912 was Pixley ka Isaka Seme, who studied at Columbia University in New York and at Oxford University in the UK.

For a black man of his time, he was extremely educated.

According to some historians, Seme had an American accent, he was charismatic and his arguments in court sometimes stunned the South African white authorities. He was a lawyer by profession.

When Seme arrived in the US in 1889 for his studies, he was received by his uncle John Dube, who would later become the first president of the SAN-NC at its foundation meeting in Bloemfontein.