I appeal for a reprieve for a moment, before you pass a judgement on the article. I am a concerned member of "The parliament of the people" who wish to restate and reiterate the contributions of gallant fighters who never succumbed or sold out the interest of the people to the highest bidder.

I am politically bruised, injured and numb seeing both my fellow cdes and those we look up to, every day going astray and veering from political line and principles of the ANC. I hope they will be inspired by acts of those who came before us, perhaps their acts will activate consciousness which will reduce number of corrupt hands visiting public cookie jar.

Let us do a swift recollection of our history. I am sure cdes have not forgotten that in the early sixties comrades such as Chris Hani who left for military training ended up been confronted by harsh conditions in Kongwa camp in Tanzania in defence of our people .

Cadres  fell in crocodile infested Zambezi River literally eaten by crocodiles and others had the courage to cross the river armed with nothing but a motivation to deliver South Africa from the shackles of apartheid and these happened in Wankie and Sipolilo campaigns, yes cadres shared the muddy water from rivers with elephants so that they can realise political-cum-economic freedom in their life time.

I refuse to believe that even convenient and selective amnesia will allow any South African in his right mind and senses to forget about the man (Solomon Kalushi Mahlangu) who confronted capital punishment on behalf of his people instead of throwing in the towel. He encouraged them to continue to fight for a just course and voluntarily donated his blood for the cultivation of the garden of freedom.

Thula Bopela ANC veteran and a former member of Mkhonto weSizwe when he defined what it meas to be associate with ANC he said:

"Joining the African National Congress at that time was a dangerous undertaking. Joining MK was tantamount to signing one's own death warrant. How then did a sensible person abandon a safe life, a promising school career in an English university, and plunge himself into an organization whose main business is to be killed or imprisoned."

Indeed cdes should now have a comprehensive understanding why people love ANC, because its foundation is solidified and concretised with the red blood and white bones of our African people. 

The challenges underscored above confirm that the bourgeoisie mode of thinking is prevalent and domineering in the ANC, this mode of thinking induce and seduce both rogue elements and cadres in the movement to use their positions of trust in both the ANC and government to accumulate at all costs.

They are prepared to use these diabolical and soiled money to buy loyalty, some are communists by day and aspiring capitalists by night. These so called comrades need to be isolated, exposed and their political careers must be ended.

We need to be industrious and work extremely hard to ensure that the working class mode of thinking become hegemonic in the ANC, and this will not happen through the wishful thinking and fantasization.

All of us communists, aspirant communists, non-communists, workers, sons and daughters of the working class must work harder to theoretically steel ourselves in the ground and win debates so that the ruling ideas are those of the working class.

Let me declare without fear of contradiction that the Polokwane Avenue full of multitudes of ponds will not be the same as the great Mangaung Second Avenue with its potholes. We will not have another splinter (Shikota) group.

Indeed no one will survive the zero degree Celsius outside the ANC. The facts are all over Mr Lekota and Mr Shilowa faces who are obviously in the political pavement. All comrades whose gloves are off overtly and those that have taken them off covertly will engage each other in the ring, unlike during and after Polokwane where others decided to get out of the ring and fight with knives.

What is not disputed here is that there is temptation to use bourgeois instruments of oppressions to fight these petty squabbles. Yes we agree that democracy must always dictate to a democratic organization like the ANC because it derives its progressive character and strength from democracy, but as we observe the principle, we need to avoid suffocating the organization to the graveyard like engaging in activities that will murder the organization.

We are in agreement that we cannot avoid debates simply because they were raised badly or equally as we debate we need to be honest and treat each other with a level of a decorum that will allow us to build the ANC for the next hundred years.

It is high time that we evade petty squabbles which are narrow, self-centred and are informed by ill-discipline. And the leadership is not exonerated. It must conduct itself in ways which are not morally and politically questionable because they have a duty to be exemplary to young people.

When President Zuma declared that ANC will rule until Jesus Christ come, A comrade from SASCO refused and attributed his disagreement to the gifts left by Ntatemoholo Karl Marx and his friend Friedrich Engels on the laws of dialectics which refute the allegation that movement existence is permanent.

Others might have been taken away by the declaration that is why they are sucking the ANC led government like the sun will not rise tomorrow. No one who is not suffering from political dislocation will believe the above statement, the truth of the matter is that the manner and speed with which the ANC and the ANC led government is been corrupted by these rogue elements will lead it straight to undertakers and Mangaung centenary of ANC will be a burial service.

True comrades who are true to themselves, ANC and South Africa must now rise and paralyse wrong elements and assassinate crass and unrefined materialism in our movement. We need to negatively stigmatise uncontrollable lust to accumulate so that we can deliver ANC to the posterity healthy. I am of the conviction that  Mangaung is not only about election it is as well about policy direction which has to be re-routed, it is not only about members of the ANC it is about ordinary people in the streets who are looking up to ANC to lift them out of abject poverty.

It is about young people who want to realise economic freedom in South Africa. It is about workers who are exploited by mining companies. It is about those that are no longer having idea of finding employment in their life time.

Please comrades our obsession should not be about lining our pockets but empowering our people to lead a reasonable life, let us allow ordinary people to also shape our course towards the next milestone as they did during the real Congress of the people in 1955.

I rest my case.

Chabana Chabana is a member of the ANCYL and YCL in Ward 19, Mangaung.

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