Today's SACP, seeing a liberal conspiracy under every bedMar 26, 2011 11:42 PM| By ------------------------------ *Mondli Makhanya:* An August 2002 Zapiro cartoon depicted a contrite Jeremy Cronin begging mercy from presidential goons dressed in trench coats. The goons were represented by the late firebrand Dumisani Makhaye and the former head of the Presidency, Smuts Ngonyama. ------------------------------ [image: Mondli Makhanya] Mondli Makhanya *Photograph by: *
*Photograph by: * " Cronin has become the intellectual battering ram for the ANC's paranoid conspiracy theorists and semi-democrats " Cronin had, in an interview with academic Helen Sheehan, darkly warned of the Zanufication of the ANC, saying that tendencies similar to those found in Zimbabwe's ruling party were creeping into the party. He was eventually forced to apologise, an act that demonstrated the intolerant culture of the Mbeki era. Cronin got to live another day and in subsequent years he and his SA Communist Party comrades played a pivotal role in ousting Mbeki from power. That was a long time ago, a time when the SACP could be relied upon to exercise principle. When Cronin, one of the ANC's foremost thinkers, could be trusted to take a morally cogent position on issues of the day. It was a time when the SACP, the supposed "vanguard of the revolution" was not a slave to the powerful but a force that spoke with the morality that one expects of the left. That was indeed a long time ago. Today the SACP is a shadow of the party that used to speak truth to power and has even become an apologist for President Jacob Zuma's amorous relationship with the Guptas. Cronin, for his part, has become the intellectual battering ram for the ANC's paranoid conspiracy theorists and semi-democrats. At the height of the acrimonious debate over the ANC's proposal to introduce a statutory Media Appeals Tribunal to regulate the print media, Cronin stepped forward to give the baying wolves some intellectual melody. When it was clear to all and sundry that the foaming-at-the mouth proponents of the tribunal - including SACP general secretary Blade Nzimande - were driven by a deep resentment of the media and a desire to tame the free flow of information, Cronin sought to give the proposal a veneer of logic. He has returned to the subject on subsequent occasion, most notably in a recent edition of the SACP Umsebenzi journal where he seeks to flog the dead horse back to life. Before Cronin accuses this lowly newspaperman of using "home ground advantage" to rubbish what he believes are legitimate arguments, let me state that his venom is not only directed at the media. He and the SACP have become very suspicious of civil society, going as far as accusing left-leaning nongovernmental organisations of being part of a "conservative anti-majoritarian liberal agenda". Last year he was scathing of Cosatu's participation in a civil society conference that aimed to establish a broad coalition to hold government to account. The fact that the drivers of this civil society initiative were former liberation struggle activists seemed to worry Cronin and party chairman Gwede Mantashe greatly. Mantashe, who is also the ANC's secretary-general, famously stated in the aftermath of the conference that he failed to "understand the nature and role of civil society in the national democratic revolution". Cronin was more blunt in his criticism of the re-emergence of civil society activism, seeking to lump progressive formations together with more conservative organisations. In his conspiratorial fantasy world there is a meeting of minds between grass roots activism and more right-leaning organisations. He patronisingly believes that the grass roots activists are merely dancing to the tune of the conservatives and questions the motives of their funders. "... The underlying strategic agenda remains the same - to constrain the democratic state, to weaken and divide the majority, to sow popular demoralisation about government, and to mobilise against what is supposed to be a dire threat to our constitution emanating from the 'ruling elite'," writes Cronin in the Umsebenzi article. Cautioning against Cosatu's dalliance with these formations, Cronin writes: "As Alliance partners, we need to be very careful that we are not manipulated into someone else's strategic agenda, particularly when that agenda is itself increasingly hegemonised by a much more right-wing, anti-majoritarian liberalism." Reading these words, I could not help but think back to the writings of he who is no longer our leader: "Our movement and its policies are also under sustained attack from domestic and foreign left sectarian factions that claim to be the best representatives of the workers and the poor of our country. The issue of the offensive of the ultra-left against our movement is also important because this ultra-left works to implant itself within our ranks." The ultra-left at that point was represented by the likes of Cronin, his SACP comrades and Cosatu. But that was a long time ago. A time when the leaders of the SACP were not yet comfortable cabinet ministers and important members of the Establishment. -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] .
