Warwick Bruce Chapman

Dear The ANC

There was a time during the liberation struggle when it was acceptable within your organisation for people like Robert McBride and Andrew Zondo to kill in the name of the fight for freedom.  During that time also, your organisation sang songs promoting further violence against the racist white oppressors at whose hands so many black South Africans suffered.

The ANC and its Allies fought against a corrupt racist nationalist Government which believed in white supremacy and denigrated black South Africans in both legislation and language.

Our hard won democracy signalled the end of that struggle era and we were ushered into the miracle of the new South Africa under the leadership of Madiba and urged to work together to create a nation where all would prosper.  Our Constitution and the rule of law no longer allows the ANC or any other person or organisation to accept violence or killing as a means to an end.  Further outlawed was the legislation and hate speech which had been the main instruments of the Apartheid state’s oppressive regime.

How then can it be acceptable to the ANC that a struggle song which uses language of violence and racism should be allowed to be wheeled out of the pre-Democracy era museum and again performed to crowds by leaders as influential as the President of the ANC Youth League?

Nobody will soon forget that there was a song which included the words “dubulu ibhunu” (Ayesaba Amagwala), just as nobody will unfortunately soon forget that putrid K-word which was used to denigrate black South Africans.  The fact that these two forms of hate speech should be banned out of use altogether does nothing to deny their previous existence and prominence.

The vacuum of decisive leadership and apparent lack of commitment to the letter and spirit of our non-racial democracy in the past months has left me wondering what the legacy of the ANC will be.  Will the ANC be remembered as the liberators of South Africa and the architects of Africa’s first successful post-colonial society? Or, will they be remembered, as ZANU-PF in Zimbabwe will, as the creators of a kleptocracy which betrayed those people who fought and died in its name?

Those of us in the opposition find we are fighting what is now almost certainly a corrupt racist nationalist Government which believes in black supremacy and discriminates against white South Africans in legislation and now condones denigrating them in language too.  Is this how you wish to be remembered?

I appeal to you to show leadership, reinforce the non-racial spirit of our democracy, and in the best interests of our future, reorientate your organisation such that your legacy is one you could be proud of when your great grandchildren ask about the ANC and the nation it united.

Yours in South Africa

Warwick Bruce Chapman