ANC History: Episode 10: OR Tambo: Andre Ondendaal

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi sits with André Odendaal, as we look at the origins of South Africa's Constitution & the vital role OR played to bring it about. A role that has earned him the title: Father of South Africa's Democracy.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Yeah. Um so today I want to read from page three hundred and seventy-two with uh Andrea Odendal's dear comrade president Oliver Tambo and the founding of South Africa's constitution. Um this is not it's not your last book. Is it your last book? Uh two books ago. Two books ago, penultimate book. Me and those words. So page 372, because we're going to to to do this thing of in general, the African National Congress here standing in is Oliver Tambo and the founding of South Africa's constitution. Because I think uh what you have here is an actually almost a century-old history with the origins of the ideas that many people um think they are not ours. But in this book 372 and afterward Freedom and Bread, the book says it provides an explanatory framework for understanding how African agency shaped the transition from apartheid to self-determination and democracy, how the first steps in the making of the constitution were taken, and what views underlay the template put in place. It argues that the decade-long process that started in the backrooms of Cha Cha Cha and Cairo Road in Lusaka was rich, complex, multidimensional, and ultimately inspiring. That the way in which South Africans constructed and formalized politically and legally a counter-hegemonic vision and a new constitutional order for South Africa is a remarkable story of African imagination, intellect, sacrifice, and struggle and success, even political genius against huge odds, including having to uh prize lose the suffocating systemic tentacles of three centuries of dispossession and having to overcome superpower. I wanna I mean I'm reading this to to announce where we are going, to announce the what this whole concession uh basically is about. I think it's uh summarized in this paragraph. And would you agree that this encapsulates what basically this book achieves?

SPEAKER_03 3:04

That's right. I want to bring across that Africans won their freedom, but they weren't given their freedom. And that struggle took place over more than 110 years before that happened. But we start in this book in the year after you were born, year before you were born. Yes. I found out that I found that this morning, and that was the Vale Uprisings, yes, and close to in you in the space you were born as well, I think. And in that year, black South Africans decided that they'd had enough with sham reforms of apartheid, the tricameral parliament. Puerto promised reform, and yet again Africans were left out of it. The National Party tried to co-opt a colored and Indian middle class, but kept excluding black people from any sense of real power or citizenship in their own country. And that was when the Vale uprising started. And it was in 1985, it spread throughout the country. The apartheid government had to start to call a state of emergency, very repressive troops in the townships, and so on. And it was in July 1985 that there was a famous conference in Kambu in Zambia, where the exiled ANC had gone into exile after the Sharpville massacre in 1961 onwards, had gathered together for what they called a consultative conference, sort of a how to do the final push to win freedom. And that was because the balance of power in South Africa had changed after Soweto 76, the rise of BC, the labor movement in the 70s, um, Mozambique and Angola becoming independent. Um there with this with this tremendous struggle erupting in South Africa in 85, the balance of power swung towards the oppressed majority, effectively. And Buerta promised to reform, and the famous Rubicon speech, where he failed to cross the river to deliver reform, meant that the international community put um deserted their um their loyalty and their friendship. The Western countries saw that they were backing the wrong horse. But the ANC's conference at Cabwe, 120 people from over 40 countries coming together to to plan a final onslaught on apartheid. And on in the wake of that conference, Oliver Tambo, the president of the ANC in exile, asked a young new member of the NEC, Palo Jordan, to write a position paper on what to do now with the West trying to influence, um, having influenced independence in Zambia, in Zimbabwe, and Namibian independence trying to hold it up. The um regime had forced Mozambique to back off through the Nkumati Accord. So at the time of the struggle was at its highest in South Africa, there were also international dangers of outside forces trying to come in. And Tamba said, uh, this is the time now for us to control our own future. What is the game plan that we're going to put in place for the future? And um, on the 8th of January 1986, at the annual uh speech of the president um where he laid out the strategies, he said this is the year of the cadre. It's time to uh to take the military struggle forward and the militant struggle inside South Africa. But on that very day, he formed a constitution committee, a secret committee of six or seven uh intellectuals within the movement to say at every war ends at the negotiation table. What are we going to be saying at that time? And um it was a remarkable exercise that it was unprecedented in the move in the annals of the movement, the history of the movement as he explained it. He wanted this group of intellectuals to work out a plan that the ANC would put forward for the future. And what emerged from that was a process that was quite remarkable. Within 10 days, they'd written a skeleton of what could become the template for a future constitution. By October 1986, they had turned that into the foundations of government document, which the NEC then studied in detail. By March 1988, it had become the uh guidelines for a democratic South Africa. And in August 88, um the guidelines were accepted as the ANC's plan for the future. And this was a plan that surprised many people and it shocked many people. Um, Palo Jordan, writing after Kabwe, said we must get rid of some of these holy cows of ours and the idea of um a one-party state, for instance, and that we'll march into Pretoria. And it was an incredible speech, uh paper that he wrote. He said there's three things that all the people who are saying there should be reform in South Africa are proposing or believe in. The one is that they say apartheid is a policy, not a system, like we believe. So if you change the policy, apartheid's gone. That's how the white reform movement was trying to move away from apartheid without changing the essentials. Um, secondly, they all propose group solutions, um federation, consociationalism, and so on. And that is in order not to change this the basics of the system. And we must insist on a united South Africa, not a federal South Africa, because that would be reproducing racial privilege in a formalized way. So a united South Africa and going with that, we must be open that we believe in a multi-party democracy and a bill of rights for all South Africans. That means that would be so radical that it would define our position apart from anyone in the South African political setup, and no one internationally would be able to object to that. In fact, it was the perfect way to say we want a united and a democratic South Africa with a constitution that has a bill of rights that makes sure that there will be radical transformation and individual freedom for every South African. It was a winning formula that they put in place, and they didn't change from that position at all for the next uh 10 years, 11 months, and two days, I think, um, after January the 8th. Um it was a consistent position that the ANC took up. It was also very stressful for the movement itself, because since 1960, it had been involved in armed struggle, and it was part of the anti-imperialist liberation movement struggles in Latin America, Vietnam, African decolonization, and so on, with very radical aims, um which included um, you know, even one-party states, a kind of Marxist doctrine, let's say the Soviet bloc kind of model that uh where they had got support from. And um the ANC also didn't want a liberal constitution that said it's a flat ground, everyone's now equal. It had to be a pr progressive constitution which made sure there was radical transformation of South African society because apartheid is a system of exclusion and a system of marginalization and economic exploitation. And therefore, we want a constitutional democracy, yes, but it has to be a progressive constitutional democracy. And the key thing is going to be the balance of forces at the time that democracy comes to South Africa. So, in other words, it's a struggle between reaction and the progressive forces and democratic forces that are trying to change South Africa. And so it was a very clear and simple uh articulation of what the ANC was putting to South Africans and to the world as the answer. Apartheid to violence, as the UDF's um slogan said, and um the progressive forces are you want to unite South Africans behind a set of values that are important, and that is basic democracy and a transformative constitution and future state. And then to get um going with that adoption of the guidelines in by 1988 was a diplomatic offensive. And that diplomatic offensive was based on um on uniting and being clear on the values, and a very important part of that was internally bringing about, taking away the boundaries that existed between exile and internal. It launched a diplomatic offensive, and although it was said to be a crime to speak to the ANC, if people left the country to speak to them, as we did in 1987 at the car, I was part of that um historic moment where for more than three months it was the main news item in South Africa, breaking the taboo about speaking white South Africans speaking to the ANC. Um, because the total onslaught slogans of the state said you're either with us or you belong to communism. And that's the same as what you're hearing from Marco Rubio today. It's the same mentality that governed South Africa. 500 years of colonialism, slavery, racism, and apartheid was the ugliest manifestation of that colonial era of Western expansion and capitalism. And um and um so the opposite to that is we're going to divide, uh we're gonna get people to unite behind an inclusive South Africa that fits with the spirit of the ANC has always been to unite its theories, all South Africans must be brought together and everyone must be citizens with the same rights. So that was a a a winning formula, and they then, in terms of the what they put out into the public domain, that was something that no other political party in South Africa internally could challenge. You say you want democracy, you want reform, this is simple. Let's be democratic, united, and a constitution and a multi-party state. Um and so you had then a very important part of it was the uniting the struggle forces in South Africa as far as possible. Obviously, there were ideological divides, as we know, between black consciousness, uh Pan-Africanist Congress, and and also other left groupings. And the idea was working from the ground, try and get all these local campaigns that are happening, the local struggles, and try and unite people in a sectoral way as well. Sports people must unite against apartheid. The National Association of Democratic Lawyers must be formed. And the National Education Crisis Committee, so to deepen that resistance and unity to work in sectors, the musicians against apartheid and so on. So there was a whole structures and linkages, more than 200 meetings happened, which effectively broke the grip of the state to control contact with the exile movement. So it brought the internal and external forces together, more than 600 underground operatives also participating in the internal forces, so that there was a lot of communication between outside and inside. And linked to that also was the ANC had by the 1980s got offices in 44 countries in the world. They opened more offices in in other countries, and the state could have diplomatic presences because apartheid was increasingly isolated. Internally, let us then isolate apartheid and increase the mass struggles. The four pillars of struggles were the armed struggle, mass mobilization, international solidarity, and uh the underground. So to this you can say there was added a fifth one, and that is the idea of a constitutional outcome and a um uh a constitutional outcome that would um and negotiations. So this diplomatic offensive took place from the 1986 onwards, at the same time that people were writing the template for the future constitution. And by 1989, things were getting to the point where we've reached our rendezvous with history, Paulo Jordan said. And that is, this is the moment now where we have to have the power behind us to implement the vision we have. And that is when the RARI declaration was drawn up to complement the guidelines, going through the President Kahonda of Zambia, Nirere in Tanzania, the frontline states, then getting this document of the ANC signed off also by the Commonwealth countries, by the OAU, by the uh non-aligned movement of more than 100 countries, and then finally taking it to the United Nations. Inside South Africa, let's put pressure on the state, which has got its back to the wall now, by starting a defiance campaign where people, tens of thousands of people marched to break state of emergency regulations. They invaded beaches that were for whites only, went to hospitals for treatment in white-only places, and so on. So by the end of 1989, and they held a conference for a democratic future where um people from other pol ideological persuasions were also invited to come, and some did. And with that backing, uh, the United Nations then gave the apartheid regime six months to change and adopt the demands of the Aurari Declaration or else face further sanctions. So basically, the mass pressure of the struggle, with a very clear strategic leadership, had pushed apartheid into a corner. It was the struggle and the African people who pushed the regime into that corner. It wasn't the clerk waking up on the 2nd of February. And thinking this. He it was something he had to do. To his credit, he did it, because we've seen what's happened in Gaza in the last two years. And P.W. Buerta, when I grew up in the mid-80s, we never thought that things would change so quickly. We thought it would it would drag. It was going to go on for a long time. The whites believed that they were indestructible, God was on their side, and they're not going to give up their power. So the way in which the ANC under Tambo strategically outmaneuvered the system was an incredible story when you think of it as a disparate movement of people in many countries over the world, with a small office in the back room of a shop in Lusaka, with all the assassinations that are happening in neighboring countries, Dalcy, September in Paris, and so on. The massive 30,000 people arrested in South Africa in 1987. And despite that censorship and control, the people persevered. The incredible courage that Strategic nuance. And it it wasn't clever thinking. It was resistance grounded in a hundred years of experience, lived experience of African people, knowing that they were going to free themselves and they had to. So that's the the first point I want to make, you know, the the sort of summary I'd like to start with.

SPEAKER_00 22:22

It's a very, it's a very long one. Let me sorry, yuff. I know it went on too long. Yeah, no what no worries. What I do want to do is tease it a bit.

SPEAKER_03 22:32

Yeah, no, sure. Let's let's go again.

SPEAKER_00 22:36

And the first question is Sholy Tambo when in 85 uh Kwabe Kabwe, I always can't get that name right, but when this initiative he takes, that look, let's draft uh what would a new constitution look like? Uh and you were explaining the hegemonic ideologies at the time, one party state vis-a-vis multi-party democracy, um constitutional democracy. Uh I want to take you through that, but when Tambo does that, my sense, and you cover it uh in some respects, there is an already existing intellectual value system he's plugging into that had been standing uh from here since 1923, so to speak. I'd like you to do that sort of successive intellectual archive of documents of African people which stem from 1923, 1943, 1955, as ultimately to this Harare declaration. So just plug it into the history of ideas of the AES.

SPEAKER_03 24:17

I think there are two uh there are three very important things in looking at the background to that and how the final challenge to apartheid came from. The first was the deep African linkages that sustained the ANC in exile. The ANC was supported by Africa in a very, very big way and internationally as well. And internationalism was in the DNA of the ANC. From the earliest time, by 1900, four of the first five presidents of the ANC, which was only formed in 1912, had already traveled overseas. So 300 young South Africans were studying in America by in the first decade of the 1900s because educational opportunities were closing in South Africa, and they were sent out to get that. So this engagement was the world, had been there for a very long time. And um these international ideas and developments from the start inspired Africans to become global citizens, shapers of a new society in South Africa. That was part of their engagement, was so that they could shape their future society. The idea of an inclusive South Africa where everyone could participate came already from the 1880s to the 1912s, before the ANC was formed. This country must be fair to people, and we want to have a greater role within the colonial society in future. And and then from 1923, the first Bill of Rights is um proclaimed by the ANC. African beloved. Yeah. But very importantly for me is the African claims document of 1943, which when Rossefeld and Churchill um drew up the Atlantic Charter, which gave rise to the United Nations and the unilateral and the universal declaration of human rights, which Trump and them have now radically destabilized. Dr. Kluma set up a committee of 29 intellectuals and under ZK Matthews, Professor Z.K. Matthews, and they said the Atlantic Charter, with all its nice work about universal uh human rights, must also apply to colonized people in the third world or the underdeveloped world or the global south as we talk today. And they laid it out, they want free education, the full property rights, and all those very, very demanding, saying, okay, this is what you're saying after the fight against fascism, we want that in South Africa. And that marked the beginning of a new phase of struggle with the growth of the Youth League, amongst others, which said, we're now going to fight for our freedom and win our national sovereignty back. And the Freedom Charter in 1955, with Professor Matthews again, very important, in proposing that at Kurmani in 1953 or 54, set out a kind of draft of the kind of South Africa that the struggle wanted to see, the ANC and its allies. So there was a constitution, a vision for the future. And when Tombow sat at the first meeting with his constitutional committee, he said we must start by reading the Freedom Charter paragraph by paragraph. It can't be a constitution, but the constitution must guide us into the future. So the ANC was feeding back into a constitutional tradition going back more than a hundred years that had been ruptured by its being forced into illegality and exile and starting the arms struggle. It was now saying we've got to revert back to constitutionalism and the diplomatic offensive of negotiations so that when all wars end at the negotiating table, when we sit down one day, we must be ready and what are we going to say? And that's where the constitutional guidelines are.

SPEAKER_00 28:55

So the concept of the Bill of Rights by now is of Africans' Bill of Rights. By now is over a hundred years, if the date of its first drafting is 1923. By 2023, it actually was the centenary. Yeah. And African claims documents in 1943. 55, which is the Freedom Charter would have been 70 years already. That was I mean, nobody talks about the first two anymore, but I think prof it's instructive. I mean, let us say what were the major ideas, because you see, this ANC of 23, this ANC of 43 is the ANC that doesn't have in its membership white people. It's Africans on their own. It's an ANC that doesn't have Indian people. It's an ANC, maybe 55 was the first sort of freedom chart. Hence that particular significance was really drafted in many ways than one, one of the early outcomes of a non-racial community. But the first two are constitutive of an ANC that is just African. So that what you're about to take us through the major ideas of the uh of the African Afric uh African claims document, these are just Africans. The 29-member committee that is drafting is just Africans.

SPEAKER_03 30:46

And this is why we need to know our history today. Because when we were at the heart of the exile struggle, armed struggle, and very militant anti-imperialism, we saw all those previous generations as kind of Uncle Tom's. But they laid the foundations for this vision of an inclusive South Africa to be developed. And in 86 it became the turn to bring that back into the picture. And that took some time and some complexity, let's say, because the focus was on, you know, armed struggle and not doing, you know, as the prime kind of uh it was it was always a armed struggle was part of the political struggle, but the the notion of armed struggle was so strong that to talk about negotiations at that time was very difficult. So it took tremendous insight at that time to actually say the time is going to come where we are going to have to negotiate and we have to put the plan on the table. We can't arrive at the table and think what happens now. Zimbabwe in 1980 and Namibia with resolution 435 was being promised independence, Namibia, and it took 10 years for it to get there. And they said we can't be held by the international community who are supporting the system indirectly, the Western countries, into an open-ended thing that leads nowhere. We have to say this is what we believe. And behind that, we have to have the mass struggle to give us movement on the ground and fight through these multiple things.

SPEAKER_00 32:28

I mean, this mass uh aspect is like the most repeated, you know, that that there was a mass struggle, there was a mass struggle. Something about AT, this process that you set out that I'd like you to again patiently detailed, is uh the ANC basically consulting the whole world. Tambo sets up this people, uh five-member, six-member committee, they draft something, it develops into a document which got heavily consulted across the world. I want us, I want you to take us through that in a bit of a patient detail, uh, the inputs of key where which countries, which leaders, which conferences, so as to make this point that uh South Africa's constitution. Actually, there's no other constitution like that in the world. If you think of the Americans and the French revolutions, the Haitian Revolution, because South Africa was such the anti-apartheid struggle, it was such an international movement, Oliver Tambo set it as a rule that you've got to go and consult with the rest of all those activists about South Africa they want to see. Just take us through that. I mean, these champs were very seriously born.

SPEAKER_03 34:05

How you could consolidate in the with the dangers of exile, Paolo Jordan, who was a key part of the NEC working on this plan, was in the same room as Ruth First when she was blown up and killed. He had his eardrum burst and he was in hospital for two weeks. And um Robert Davis has written in his autobiography about how he accompanied Samora Michelle into the room and the sight of what Matty Mastornot left him. These are the dangers that people went through on a daily basis in exile, the lack of money, the lack of resources. But the there's a photograph that we put in the book of Marion Makeba singing in this majestic kind of style that she's got and beauty. And there's a guy playing in the piano with a handkerchief in his top pocket, and that's President Kenneth Kawondan. Now that tells you something about the linkages and alliances that Tombo developed with other African leaders, particularly from Tanzania, Zambia, Angola, Mozambique, and so on. He was called a brother president by them. And the the fact that the ANC was located in Lusaka as its headquarters for so long, there was the Harari meeting, uh very important, in 1986 or 87, the Harare Conference for Children, um, where the internal groups found uh an opportunity to meet with the entire leadership of the ANC. That was one of the key conferences of those 200 meetings that started happening across borders. And the Zambian uh the Zimbabwe government made that possible, and also Zimbabwean academics were doing research and visiting South Africa to help develop ideas around a future as well. So the linkages in all these countries, uh also with the Swedes, who were very supportive with the PASA project to look at future scenarios for Southern Africa to help the ANC work that out. So let me just read to you Oliver Tombow's first trip after he'd landed um in Tanzania for the first time, and it was to tune us via Nairobi and Rome. And Lulie Kalinikos, his biographer, recalls the impact. For the first time in his life, Tombo was exposed to the sheer cosmopolitanism of Africa. Yea, in the north, ebony blue black men spoke fluent French and Italian, yet wore the dress of vibrant textiles, design, color, and stitch work. Colonized as most unmistakably were, they were also located in a nexus where Africa met the Mediterranean and the Levant, the cultural product of centuries of vigorous trade, war, and religious transaction. And it was a culture shock that made him realize the challenges ahead. He had now to construct his identity in a world of new diversity. He was an Anglican guy who wanted to become a church minister, and he was a mathematician and a lawyer, and now he had to go and become a cosmopolitan in the world to meet that struggle. And there's a beautiful description of when he's told he has to leave now to go and lead the outside, put set up bases on the outside. He goes back to his office for two days and finishes all his paperwork and casework. That's the diligence. He takes his wife, Adelaide, and they sit next to in a park, and he explains to her he's got to leave tomorrow night. And these are the radical impacts on people's lives. And there he goes, and from there it's to Tunis and Rome and a never-ending stream of global engagements. That's what finally led to his health packing in his his his his schedule. So that connection globally with pan-Africanism that comes far back as well, and um in exile in Ghana, when the first often krumah and Ghana's independence, South Africans were there. Um Barbara Masakela met Maya Angelo there. Um Maria Makeba was married to St Stokely Carmichael. I mean, it's like it wasn't just a you know people meeting diplomatically to make connections. It was on the cultural level, on the intellectual level, in all sorts of romantic level. Romantic, because culture and music may at the heart of the inspiration of the political vision, then that's what made the 80s so powerful, and why the funeral on the sports field with the singing and the dancing became a symbol of that determination not to step back again.

SPEAKER_00 39:57

I I see, I mean, that's the normal, I think everybody is aware of just how the struggle was multinational, uh international. But the genius of this document cannot end in a national executive committee meeting. All these people who are supporting the South African struggle must be consulted and their views must be taken into consideration. Again, I think maybe just give us that. I mean, who were the major international figures on the one hand, but are the foras on the global stage such that by the time South Africa opens itself up to negotiations with the unbending of political parties? Essentially, what the ANC is armed with is an international consensus that the apartheid regime doesn't have.

SPEAKER_03 41:04

It showed the total isolation of the regime at that stage. Besides the political pressures, it realized it couldn't stay in power through repression for much longer. It could maybe have stayed for 15 more years, and as we say, compare Israel and Palestine, the scenarios. But the they were so isolated and the strategic alliance was so complete to go from the frontline states to the OAU, to the Commonwealth, to the non-aligned meetings that they consulted. They all went to those meetings. More than a hundred states say we support the constitutional guidelines and the Harari Declaration as the future for South Africa. It was tied up in a nice package and said it's simple. We need democracy in South Africa, and we are proposing an inclusive and generous democracy. And so, you know, there are two there's two myths that we must get out of the way. First one is that somehow it was the Russians or the British or the Americans that laid it, laid the table for it, that helped us get that. In October 1986, when the foundations of government document, which was the early draft of the constitutional guidelines, was more or less agreed to by the NEC, that was one month before Tombo and Mbeke met with Gorbachev for the first time. So they had decided on African soil, led by Zola Squareyear as one of the key people, who'd been the ANC's ambassador at the OAU beforehand, had decided on that strategy before they met Gorbachev. And it was three years before the fall of the wall. So it was not when the war fell that suddenly the ANC changed. The plan was in place at the very time that the war was falling. And at the same time that people were pouring into the streets in Eastern Europe and Tiananmen Square, the defiance campaign was also falling into the streets in December and November, October 1989 in South Africa. So that's the first thing. The British, Margaret Thatcher said the ANC is living in cloud cuckoo land if they think they'll ever rule South Africa. And that was in the middle to late 80s. George Schultz and the USA didn't want to meet with Tamba because they were terrorists. And only that happened in 1990. When this balance of forces, when this change in power started becoming evident. And when you look at it today, you don't get any sense somehow that that struggle operated in that very calculated way and developed in that way. It's almost like the massive sacrifices, the massive vision, and the huge effort that went into it and the diplomacy on a wide level that outmaneuvered the state is not appreciated today, I must say. And one can understand it given where we are today. But you know, for anyone, if you're talking about decolonization, you have to know who our African forefathers were intellectually and politically. And in the 80s was a key moment.

SPEAKER_00 44:55

I do want to pick up some few aspects and ask some controversial questions that are relevant to today. But before that, I want to read the guidelines. So guidelines would be Cato Carnaval Matter in Paris.

SPEAKER_01 45:30

It's quite long, you know.

SPEAKER_00 45:32

I'll pick up a few. Yeah. I mean, I think um so people get a sense of what these chaps wrote. Um and please keep in mind my question is going to be about this idea of a multi-party democracy and then constitutional democracy. Just the ideas, why and how such decisions were made. What were the debates really about uh what do we become? A one-party state, a multinational, multi-party state, um, and how does the party decide we must become a multi-party democracy and why? Because these are in the constitutional question. I mean, the question of there must be a constitutional court and we must have constitutional supremacy. What was the alternative? It almost looks so natural because constitutional supremacy, by definition, one almost confuses it as rule of law, that uh, you know, everybody is equal before the law, such a law must be there. Uh and um, but it seems that there were alternatives that we hear now today being expressed in other circles, such as parliamentary democracy. Uh, in some instances, some people want the revival of some feudal uh constitutional or feudal state arrangements.

SPEAKER_03 47:11

And if you if you read the 1986 NEC discussions about that, I mean it is a very strong thing against um traditional leaders uh being leaders in the new democracy because that was like would be um an encouraging uh you know continuation of feudal relations and so on. And only one person opposed it uh or felt strongly that that the traditional leaders were important. Others said it's a political issue that you're not going to you're gonna divide people at a time when you're trying to unite them. But the supremacy of a modern constitution would be the you know, would those relations would fall under that in future, but it's not something you now want to tackle and start internal debates all over South Africa.

SPEAKER_00 48:08

Okay, do I mean I I can't find the actual guidelines, uh, but just to to take some beads from the Harara Declaration, Statement of Harris. Yes, I know it's in here. Yeah, yeah. But there's some interesting sections. Uh we believe in the section they call Statement of Principles, which is really, in my view, the heart uh because between the preamble climate for negotiations guideline process as well as a program of action. This is the declaration in Harare. But the Statement of Principles has the following: We are at one with them that the outcome of such a process should be a new constitutional order based on the following principles, among others. South Africa shall become a united, democratic, non-racial state. All its people will enjoy common and equal citizenship and nationality regardless of race, color, sex, and creed. All its people shall have the right to participate in the government and administration on the basis of universal suffrage exercised through one person, one vote under a common voter's road. All shall have the right to form and join any political party of their choice, provided that this is not in the federance of racism. One makes you think of some political parties.

SPEAKER_03 49:43

Exactly. And if you if you look at the group rights no-no, where Jordan said no group rights, and you look at Afri Forum today with their reactionary They are in pursuit of group rights. But is is that not clear and simple in terms of whoever reads it knows exactly what the struggle is ultimately about. Whereas reform is always conditional and yes, but and we are trying to change while the system stays intact. It was a beautifully crafted, simple kind of thing to put out there.

SPEAKER_00 50:23

I do want to read a little bit of all of these, not the rest of them, just the these sort of sections. All shall have the right, all shall enjoy universal recognized human rights, freedoms, and civil liberties protected under an entrenched bill of rights. And we know the ANC has had a Bill of Rights since 1923. South Africa shall have a new legal system which shall guarantee equality before the law. South Africa shall have an independent and non-racial judiciary. The independence of a judiciary is not something that is an outcome of negotiations, precedes negotiations. Is there in the ANC? No. They don't get it as an outcome of the negotiations, some compromise, as it were. An independent judiciary is an ANC idea in which in the 1980s already. Not after 1980s. There shall be an economic order which shall promote and advance the well-being of all South Africans. A democratic South Africa shall respect rights, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of all countries and pursue the policy of peace, friendship, and mutual, beneficial cooperation with all people.

SPEAKER_03 51:43

And that also goes with your RCJ and multilateralism and so on. It's part of international solidarity over the over the century, basically.

SPEAKER_00 51:55

And they then say for for any negotiations to take place, the following must must happen. You must release all prisoners. Anyway, let me then probe. Take us, I mean, I mean, maybe as a final conceptual work now. Firstly, the idea then of a multi-party democracy, how did that debate unfold? Do we go for, you know, typical one-party states? There were many of them. Nyerer was presiding over a one-party state at the time. I think Kawunda as well. There were many of them, particularly. Mozambique as well. Mozambique was a one-party state. How does the ANC, under those circumstances, see multi-party democracy as a solution when majority of the progressive countries, so to speak, were entrenched in one-party states?

SPEAKER_03 52:51

Because the weaknesses of the one-party model were by then becoming evident. So when the guys went into Mozambique soon after independence in the 1970s, the first thing they saw was a Frilimo soldier carrying a rail AK-47, and they had the sense of freedom has been achieved here. 1987, when they flew from Maputu to to Lusaka for the meetings of the Constitutional Committee, that soldier was no longer that symbol exactly of what he'd been ten years ago. Centralized government over the people was also suppressing kind of energies on the ground, let's say. So that centralized model was not working in Angola. It was not working in Mozambique. It was in trouble in Sambia, KK. It was in the 90s kicked out. And so people were grating against, to be honest. I think from what I've heard from the interviews and you know experiences I've heard, that people were seeing also going to the GDR to study. What is the GDR? The German Democratic Republic, um, old Eastern East Germany. So many people studied there, and many people came back.

SPEAKER_00 54:25

What was the worry? Where the because when you think sitting here today, the regimes of the East East Asia held on to the model. And they managed to sort of disarticulate a developmental strategy that has seen them become part of the developed countries. All of them, well not all, but most of them are one-party states. They were able to, you know, constitute an economic program, uh, suppress corruption, uh, educate their societies, lead an industrial strategy, um, and limited a democratic internal contestation to the party.

SPEAKER_03 55:23

Yeah. I think that's that's a debate for post-1990, in a way. At that stage, it was to say, you know, the states are propaganda is that they these are godless communists who are intent on taking over our country, imposing a one-party state and everything that is anti-democratic. And this model of democracy and the and the ideas of the Freedom Charter actually were not antithetical to be too multi-party as a democracy. And that was Tombaugh's leadership that came through at that moment. He was a guy who always listened, spoke last, as you heard in your last podcast, very precise in the way he operated and in the use of his language and so on. And post-Cubwe, that was probably one of the most strategically decisive interventions when he said, I want a multi-party democracy and a bill of rights. That is what I support. And that it sort of almost fitted in, maybe, you know, with the with the colonial British-American kind of models at that time, um, or being models, but this was an African solution. It was anti-imperialist at heart. People traveled to Vietnam while the war was still on. They supported Vietnam. They supported Palestine. Alex Leguma in this book in 1980. They were deeply anti-imperialist. And he also said uh at that first meeting that they uh we uh the West is not our friends. We have to come up here with a solution that is strong enough to withhold the pressure they're going to put on us, as they've done in Lusaka and the British had done in Zimbabwe.

SPEAKER_00 57:22

Let's go to this question of independent uh judiciary, but in the main, that concept of the constitutional court as the final arbiter uh on constitutional disputes, which today seems to uh unsettle people who were in that room in Campu. They seem to now think it was a wrong. But how how did that one in particular unfold the idea of the supremacy of the constitution and a constitutional court which becomes the final arbitrary?

SPEAKER_03 58:13

Well, I think the idea of the constituent assembly was absolutely crucial, that the constitution would only be adopted when by the elected representatives of the South African people. Agreed. They did not go there with saying this is what the constitutional court will look like. It was the idea of a constitutional democracy which would be finalized by the representatives of the people chosen by the people in a universal adult vote. So that by 1889, when this book ends, that's that's an issue that's still coming. And the how it gets developed is by those representatives of the people chosen in in 1984. And that was a part of the ANC preempting imposing something on South Africa, saying it must be the elected representatives of the people who finalize the Constitution.

SPEAKER_00 59:14

But already in its doctrine, you can see the principle is the same, uh independent judiciary.

SPEAKER_03 59:22

Yeah, if you look at the African claims and so on, probably find things there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 59:28

What does that mean? Yeah. What did it mean in your view? I mean, for of course, I get this idea that the final constitution itself, but the principle that there must be in that constitution, we as the ANC are proposing that in that constitution there must be an independent judiciary, independent of the politicians that are going to decide on its independence. I think but also there is something powerful there, isn't it? I mean, of constitutional supremacy. This idea is not the result of the Constituent Assembly. The constitutional supremacy concept. And you can tell me otherwise, but the idea that uh the constitution is once adopted will be a supreme law, will be an uh something that we all nonetheless henceforth and you make it eternally difficult to amend. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:32

But this is contested today. No, that's true. And the idea of uh you know, sort of the sovereignty of parliament uh over vis-a-vis. But I think I think um again, I don't have the answers. There are other people who are much more um knowledgeable than me about this, but the context in which African independence happened and in which um what we're seeing being dismantled today were very powerful things. The United Nations was going to become a parliament of the world where people would solve problems together, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. And, you know, so it comes from that kind of tradition as well. Africans buying into this no uh this vision of a global solidarity and future and a rules-based kind of order rather than the the Soviet model of of uh that that existed during the Cold War. And um, that's why it led to quite a lot of people.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:40

What do you think Oliver would say uh OR to the debate today that the problem is you've got twelve individuals who sit in Hilbro, uh was it Bramfontein? Yeah. Very close to Hillbro, but yeah, who sit in Bramfontein? Yeah, uh the idea is that these are the people who decide and they are not elected. Would what would Oliver Tambo think of that of that argument?

SPEAKER_02 1:02:16

You're asking me to be speculative, basically.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:19

He was he was a layer and he was precise in his articulation, and that articulation that you've just read is is a beautiful and powerful one, and it's totally African in its origins. Um I think for me, it's time for a second transition in South Africa. No one can be happy with where we're at. It's not necessarily the fault of the constitution. Um the 30 years later, we can't keep on standing by, you know, 94 in the constitution. Why are there so many people excluded socioeconomically? Both Kader Asmal and Penyal Maduna said that this is not just a constitution to bring in human rights. This was a had to be a bread and freedom constitution. It had to be a radical transformative constitution, given 300 years of structural disablement that had happened in South Africa. So that when the guys arrived back in South Africa in 1990, they had very radical plans in terms of how they saw the constitution. But they also saw the the problems very clearly about the people's representatives being a trade union, this, this, and the other in a one-party state constitution. Because as we know, the people, in the name of the people, the people weren't there. Um and in in many ways. So it's a it's a complex debate if you go to Asia and stuff as well now. But I think the the idea was, you know, perhaps Larkenkrumer, too much once we've got political power. And um but the idea of the democracy they wanted to bring into existence was very clearly laid out. Tombo Tombow also died at the wrong time. I mean, he literally put the last dotted the last I and crossed the last T and collapsed that day or the next day. And um his presence was tremendously missed between um when was it that he uh had the the stroke? Was it August August 89 and 1991 when the negotiations started? So the internal kind of um differences of opinion within the ANC, there's no one who comes straight out as the leader. Alfred and Zor and uh uh the Treasury General and Corby weren't exactly the, you know, the statesman mould. They were more solid people in the background. And it's only when Madiba arrives in Lusaka in February 1990 that you then have him clearly now going to become the new guy, and he links up with Tombow, but he's he's effectively Tombo has now been removed from this thing. I think if Tombo had been in South Africa from 1990 to 1994, we might have had a less generous um sort of offering, let's say, from the liberation movement.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:58

I want to come back to to that. part and it relates to the uh to the point you made about the debates at the time or over apartheid being a system versus abartheid being a policy but also the group thinking that some people had hoped. Certainly some in the sections of the black community did see um the continuation of reforms alongside uh race and ethnicity um the but to stand leaders for instance that the that sort of continuation of you can continue to reform South Africa and have it exist on the basis of groups that are racial but also that are ethnic I found the guidelines. Okay yes and uh I some some important things here um where where they talk about the new constitution shall be based on the following principles. Somewhere they say here the state and all institutions shall take active steps to redress as speedily as possible the economic and social inequalities produced by Apartheid. In particular the unjust dispossession of the African people of their land shall be corrected through the abolition of all legislation restricting land ownership and use on racial basis and all other upper fate measures designed to deprive the people of their land and livestock. The victims of forced removers carried out by the abided regime shall be given proper redress by the state.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:48

In particular they shall be given the right to return to their land and ancestral homes wherever possible I mean if you look these chaps didn't just think of the right to vote, the right to uh form a party of your own there's also a commitment to a a very radical transformation because that but this describes the apartheid systematically because apartheid was first and foremost absolutely a special development on the basis of race and ethnicity as you say so take me through in the very very final end of the what became the South African constitution do you see a framework lying in there allowing for systemic disarticulation at that level well there was an article last year about the land claims in KZN the area around Michael House I remember particularly being mentioned something like 117,000 land claims of which the files had been lost and only one land settlement in which the white farmer who owned a game reserve I think got 700 million Rand. Now is that the Constitution's fault that those all those cases were not dealt with? District 6 today if you see this empty sky in Cape Town and how slow that process has been it's it's not because of a lack of will to redress but uh what has happened in the 30 years since then. And that's why I think the debate about a second transition becomes very crucial in this stage. But let us look at actually the heroic nature in which freedom came to South Africa. It wasn't given it was fought in that incredible way in the 80s with those goals that are articulated there what went wrong from then to now is a question we must be totally open-ended about. But I think at a time of genocide of the collapse of Western civilization actually if you look at their behavior in Gaza and you know in a film genocide that's enabled by the West the notion of human rights totally gone. Let's not forget the value of this vision that those people left us and brought to our democracy. So that international law is domesticated in our law, unlike other countries where Mart is right. They'll claim they've got a rule of law system and democracy but then go and invade perpetually in a serial way countries and break up Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria and everywhere else to control oil fields and and geopolitical dominance. So this was a democracy as you saw there coming out of an international supported struggle that placed South Africa in an international way of behaving and internally as well. And at this time for me one of the big lessons is uh remember I read this sort of thing recently remember resist and find our voice again articulate with a with an African voice from the global south we've got to lead in a time of systemic sort of um crisis climate climate crisis survival and everything else reinvent the notion of human rights and it's about an us and them attitude and an inclusive us we are part of the world is where decoloniality comes because the whole Western dominance of the last 500 years comes from us and the othering of the other us and them and it's come up starkly again which shows you again the achievement of actually forcing the regime you know within 10 years of Kabwe the regime that was confident that it will hold the communist threat was no longer so the achievement was immense. The challenges today are immense and I think that as young people who want change, who want decolonization, let us go back to these thinkers, let's go back and understand their context and let us fight for that inclusive universal vision of a future not only for our country but the world. And one of the beauties of knowing the or of sort of exploring the history over since 1880 is that the notions of black consciousness, non-racialism and pan-Africanism for me have been grappled with since the 1880s since the formation of the Ethiopian churches and they vacillate as the country comes under pressure in different ways where the the you know the pendulum swings one way and the other but all of them at their heart are about an inclusive humanity.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:51

And that to me is very let me let me ask the final question to underscore this group's the the uh desire of the chefs that were running apartheid to try and sneak in uh in the constitution sections that may allow them to continue uh alongside group existence but anyway remember the paper we started with by Paolo Jordan to the NEC if you remember its title it was the new phase of counterrevolution this is back yeah in ANC lexicon what is the phase of counterrevolution today if you are Jordan and you were to advise the NEC and the paper you write here it notes the earth and the rumors and speculation about the possibilities of some democra dramatic reform breakthrough in South Africa. The problem was that most of these were old themes that was not to say that no change was happening indeed he wrote the very outpouring of speculative writings and premature predictions is a sign of the extreme fluidity of the situation. He was trying to attack the idea of a false reform of a false change counterrevolution always wants to give us a half-baked to postpone or to extend its lifespan it gives us a half-baked solution so it can repackage itself now earlier when you were talking about this idea of the continuation of group uh reform group thinking you mentioned Africorum but isn't it true that there are about 40 or so percent of the wide section of the population that didn't want a negotiated open democratic transition to take place if we go with the the referendum that Dick Run. But also we know that there are chaps who in 1994 said you may have won the battle but we will win the war.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:19

I totally disagree with the president and his um long elaboration of somehow other the old state infiltrating us and stopping democracy I think we've got to look at our own faults that the best way to work against counterrevolution is to be a strong, efficient delivering state that lives according to the values that it put into existence and in the absence of that you have these vacuums in which everything flows in and in a in a time of change that we're going through now where reaction is sweeping across the globe we need to be even stronger. Now we're at our weakest with potholes and no water and 25 municipalities that pass their audits and that's what allows counterrevolution to come in. The other massive factor for me is that the white community has not bought into democracy it you know it still talks about they and them it still talks about somehow other being victims when you know the the victims of apartheid have become the problems again in to to the white community in many ways. Unfortunately the kind of parody of the liberation ethic that we see today as government and the ANC and I'm sympathetic to the goals and the aims but what I see there and my children says Dad what's happening here what are these colours you know and but the whites have white South Africans have benefited from democracy as it was stated there Africaners are wealthier than they were um the the black body is still the body that gets shot in the street that dies in poverty and stuff like that. And that's not because of counterrevolution it's a because of us not building this democracy to the capacity that it should have so that the values have meaning. You can't talk about you know justice for everyone when there's a justice system in in dysfunction. So this this is quite an important aspect for me I think we we have to revisit um where we've come from we've got to fix what's wrong and still hold on to this sense of us as South Africans. It's also when the trouble is all over the show it's very easy to divide and rule and I don't see any mastermind from the old system. If anything they totally overrated themselves just like um the Starcy did in in the GDR. Barnard and Estrazer almost claim to be the people who co-authored democracy they came in very late they they overstated their power Jordan knew that Francis Melli was working with a system when Dakar happened and he said how come he's there when we've decided not to put him into certain sensitive places and when you know this these all these authoritarian states have these great claims and um and and then collapse but clearly the radical transformation on many levels that we wanted I'm interested in sport and one can look all over but the socioeconomic conditions is governed I would say by global economy which makes it how could you not see value um in this idea because I I I find some some uh but are you actions very strange I wouldn't put it to you this way yeah how is it that people who were in Kabwe in Kabwe in 1985 yeah are the ones after having run the state after having run it down how come those people today tell us there's a problem with the constitution yes no and then so these are characters were in Gwave and I I remind you of the paper that Jordan writes if you read the because I had to go read it on its own if you read that paper how could you not from its framing of questions not wonder how do people who are in the room in Kwabe who come up with the principles and the guidelines for what became South African's constitution and they wean on all of them mobilize the rest of the world get the world behind those principles and when they come in 1990 they come with a document which is almost like an internationally approved constitution and in the main by progressive forces Fidel Castro KK Nerere Govachev uh and many the whole world radicals uh you know from from yeah I mean these people had gone through and said this is the best the word is in all of the whole of organized humanity the whole of organized humanity the people that were in that room who who did all of this no they didn't do all of this no i'm saying they were there yeah they are part of the processes from Gwahabe up to the negotiation in Kodessa one and Kodessa II not only do they do that they run the state in the name of this constitution 30 years later they say they say no the problem is the constitution the constitution doesn't allow us to give you land the constitution doesn't allow us uh to give you the mines the constitution doesn't allow us to give you jobs in fact in the end yeah uh these people who are sitting in Bramfanten are not elected we should take the final word back to Cape Town they tear it apart. But it's how do you explain that except but it's not the concept of content no no two things here firstly is Olaskwear was chairman became chairman of the Constitution committee he was the Minister of Social Welfare who started the 50 million people on state grants that is a quiet soldier for freedom working very hard that's a a key note of his thing the diligence of their work is being sent to Swaziland to Fred Kartzmark's body with his security pandemic crawling out there having just assassinated people. Those are the things that these guys went through in drafting while they were drafting this constitution and he I remember him telling me this is no longer my ANC the guy who drafted the constitution and he said when Teddy Pecani died of the Constitution committee he wasn't even shown on SABC's funeral and he said we've got to write our story in concrete not in sand like it is now state capture was not um state capture and the Zuma era that's it's obvious it's total destruction of constitu of institutions that are supposed to monitor and make the system work. And that's where we're sitting today with Madlanga from the deliberate breakdown but this is not a counter revolutionary working for the apartheid state this is a corrupt person who under his watch broke down the liberation legacy and made a mockery of it and we have now got to do that second transition to get back to the values and the heights of what these people represented to us. But it's for a new generation to do it when Jabavu started Invozabansundu in 1884 he was 23 years old the first independent black newspaper in South Africa those were the digital natives of the 1800s that to learn new technologies, new worlds, engage in new ways of lobbying and petitioning and so on. And they did it with skill. Now it's for the young generation to pick up within their experience but not to cut themselves off from what Wendy for cut yourself off from state capture and other things but find a way forward that draws on this legacy because what is the opposite? It's Trump and the noises of the social digital age and the kind of using and theming of people. Progressiveness is something located within the heart of the African struggle in South Africa and we must find that somehow and give it a new expression in this new era.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:25

Thank you so much we knew we need a second episode on the founders very soon is very far we don't want to maybe we can go shoot that episode of the founders uh somewhere next to Druma's natives club below in downtown that would be amazing no but we must um thanks very much it was lovely to chat up sorry I got a bit blah blah blah at once no it's a perfect one it's a perfect but there's so much you know I don't try to have answers for now yeah but uh it can't go what do you hold back I mean the argument is a very simple one uh that Tabo makes which he says Kalema Kalema who had initially doubted it the actually Mac says he's shocked only Tabo only now Tabo comes to appreciate that the first person to actually make the argument was Madiba and when Madiba made it in the NEC Tabo said counterrevolution would come from outside not from the old old inside Madiba was like counter revolution will come from inside and the conversation now is it actually came from the inside because what they are doing all of them to their unfortunate regret is to trace these characters before they found them who are they Let us start naming them. Zuma. Number one. They trace him. They cannot account for his charges in 64. He was not of the charges for why he ended up in Robin Island. They can't. Nobody can find those charges. They're certainly not political. Two the Swaziland deaths in the 1980s, which Spiwenyanda can tell you volumes about. And all they did is move him from Swaziland to Botswana. And then the claims, you know, he says he was trained. The guy was poisoned in the south. Yes, they say the claims that he was trained. Zuma goes around saying he's got military training. He doesn't. He's not trained. And then he says he was heroes intelligence. He was not. But then they make interesting juxtapositions. You see, JZ's rise coincides with the death of Mabida in 80 something. And the chap that was the head of international mission.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:24

Yes, um, very special guy. Tony McKatib.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:29

These were the two prominent KZN people at the end.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:33

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:33

Yeah. Then Zuma. Sure.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:36

Because and Zuma came in with Posa and uh Maduna. They were the first three back in South Africa. Yes, but remember there's that problem in the ANC of always balancing KZN and Eastern Cape because of the initial problem that and that's where Butelezzi pushed the tribal thing right to the end into the new situation.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:02

So you've got that dynamic. And then Zuma gets in the state, his first project is what only Malanga is dealing with now. Zuma's first project was the security cluster. Yeah. So they go and locate the chaps that were put by him there.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:24

Then you know who Tom Moyani is. He's uh someone's brother.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:30

Billy Mac uh Billy Modese's uh No, Tom, Tom, Tom and Zuma met in Swaziland in 80 something. Uh Tom had a he has a number. Unfortunately, what outed him out is that he has a tax number from the apartheid old days. You're joking. Because he was being paid already through the special branch. Sure. They've got all these things, they are not saying it publicly. But why not?

SPEAKER_03 1:30:59

Because because you you know, what I'm what I'm hearing him when he's talking, I'm hearing of him undermining Cyril constantly. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:11

There's there's this kind of generalization in that discussion, which is very But the problem with Cyril's chaps is that the 2007 chaps have not accepted what happened in 2007.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:28

Well, the party must take responsibility and Kusatu as well for what happens.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:34

Vavi actually is the the key guy. You must watch this episode. Vavi says, let me tell you. Now that Mukonto sees where party has happened, let me tell you. In 2007, we embraced counter-revolution. He says, that's what we did. And we were irritated with uh Becky and the 1996 class process.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:59

But how's he how is he how's he articulating counter-revolution? Is there? This is what I'm trying to say. It's when the money got to these guys and money became everything, and the arms deals and the other deals, that it became like money apart. Like, how do you I don't know enough? I don't know enough because out of things for 10 years.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:23

I've been sitting in my room. I will ask maybe uh the next what we will do an episode with um uh Dr. Mapai because he has been looking at this the staff of who in the movement were characters of the old order. Because the old uh there was a actually a special team of professors and people of the National Intelligence Agency, about six, if not so, of them. A team that had been gathered since 82 or 81 to study Tambo, anticipate his moves. Of some of those professors, they're named.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:17

They can, I mean, if I I would love to, I would love to hear that because I'm totally and Estrage and these people were going to Namibia to the border today with the in the Brudeborn set. Toffee, toffee, toffee. No, don't worry. I I can't. You I'll take her out now. Flora. I love this is the she sits at my feet every day when I'm live.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:44

Okay, I was attacked by a thousand dogs. Is it? Yeah. No, Naya said no dogs, please. Yeah. This was not on Khmer. No, no, oh me on the table. No, that could be quite a thing.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:58

And I think just give it an ear that I'll because my problem is that they are not. I think they won't because half of it is their making, as you put it. Half of it is at every juncture when the signs were clear, yeah, for all of them, for different reasons, they thought they can arrest, neutralize. Uh, sometimes I think it was pure political ambition, uh, but in some instances I think it was human blindfoldedness. Like you can't, I can't I couldn't believe.

unknown 1:34:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:37

Uh to the end, look at the story of Makiwan, Tenson Makiwa.

SPEAKER_04 1:34:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:42

To the end. Yeah. Tambo couldn't wrap his head that he got shot. That no, that he was a ganger. Yeah. And when you trace his collaboration, this is the chap who was in the room as a founder of MK.

SPEAKER_03 1:34:56

Yeah. And he goes back to Kazai in the Transcar.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:01

Yeah. He he he, as he founds the MK, he's already being handled.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:06

That has got to be the next book, Gas. We've got to be able, we've got to be able to clarify because at the moment, when I hear the president speaking like that, I'm seeing him playing old games of sidelining people and that kind of thing. And um if he doesn't mention the name, Zuma's Zuma to me is clear.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:29

And we're you know, well, to be fair, and we keep cutting out the stuff on Zuma. He says it. What we are afraid is, you know, the typical response is going to be uh it's perfect. Yeah, Zuma against Mbeki, Zuma against Mbeki. So and I I have said to him, maybe someone else should raise the Zuma question, not you, because they'll just think you are bitter about 2007. And in the last MKVA meeting, he went without going for JZ, but said, this is what I mean, he he gave them the stuff and the general framework that this is what these chaps represent. Um this is what happened, how the ANC lost elections in KZ. The same machinery that had been put up by the old order of hostels, of n donors and the chiefs is what delivered the victory for MK in KwaZulu Natar. And you go check it. The old Incarter war. Yes. No, it was been subsumed into the ANC. But I know my suspicions of that machinery were I saw them in the July unrest. Because I studied the Val uprising and the Val violence 80s uh 89, 90 coming this way. Sure. How this is, and if anybody is gonna look at uh the history of the EFF in the future, my sharp disagreement in the EFF started that that was a point of no return. I I now realize started over the July unrest. Because I said to them, this is this is not revolution. Yeah. Because how violence arrived in Easter End, in uh the Cebuking and all of that, it was through the hostels.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:41

The truck drivers and the truck.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:44

But that's how the July unrest happened. It was like the machinery just went up.

SPEAKER_03 1:37:49

And the weapons that were stolen are all somewhere. I understand.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:54

And but just the networks, the machinery of operation, it was not it if you understand black on black violence, yeah, it's its controls and structures. Then July unrest was exactly that. Sure.