South Africa's liberation movement: The tickey and the future

THERE is a tragic image that haunts the modern state of our liberation movement.

- Dr Pali Lehohla

It is the image of a child sitting in the dust beside a railway line.The train thunders past, heavy with the wealth of the land—gold, platinum, coal, and iron ore—heading for the ports to be shipped to the bellies of foreign empires. The child does not look at the cargo. The child does not ask where the wealth is going, or why the tracks only lead in one direction—out. Instead, the child waits for the train to return from the mines, hoping that the "father"—White Capital, the Empire, the rating agencies—has brought back a small packet of sweets.

The African National Congress (ANC), a 115-year-old adult forged in the fires of struggle, has metamorphosed into this child. It sits by the tracks of the global economy, watching the extraction of our sovereignty, and when the masters of finance disembark, it does not demand ownership of the mine or the railway. It begs for mekukutoana (sugar scraps). It begs for the "sweets" of taxes and loans to fund a social wage, while the structural wealth of the nation is spirited away.

Cabral’s Verdict on the 23 Million

This infantilisation is not just a political failure; it is a betrayal of the most fundamental tenet of liberation. Amilcar Cabral, the great revolutionary of Guinea-Bissau, warned us more than five decades ago:

“Always bear in mind that the people are not fighting for ideas, for the things in anyone’ head. They are fighting to win material benefits, to live better and in peace, to see their lives go forward, to guarantee the future of their children”

Cabral was precise. He did not say “guarantee the survival of the party’; or “guarantee a seat at the G20." He said "guarantee the future of their children."