Fikile Mbalula's views in his article, "Let's debate ANC Leadership" (Sowetan February 23 2012) sound as if all of a sudden he has waken up to a surprise of a new organisation. The ANC has its own principles and historical way of approaching leadership issues that have become an entrenched culture.
Mbalula conveniently concocts a wide range of issues ranging from leadership to organisational renewal, redesign, and modernisation. A quick browse into literature posted at ANC website shows that all these issues have been dealt with extensively in previous conferences of the ANC and still remain central in debates leading to Mangaung.
Former ANC president, OR Tambo used to encourage young people not only to train militarily but to equip themselves with technical skills so as to be ready to assume leadership when the ANC assumes power
What makes the debate on "general mix" a bit strange is that this time around it is coupled with a name of a particular person and cannot be divorced from personal ambition. This pollutes the whole debate as it has connotations of "now it's our our turn to lead".
Personal ambition cannot be encouraged in an organisation such as the ANC since revolutionary leadership is about selflessness and prioritising daily struggles of the people, especially the poor stratum of the working class. It's a privilege and not an entitlement when you are given responsibility to lead.
Further, it's not always necessary to assume positions of leadership to make an impact in the organisation and society as a whole. We can take a leaf from the founding president of the ANC, Langalibalele Dube, who was elected in absentia since he was already an imminent person in society.
Citing desperate examples of how Thabo Mbeki and Cyril Ramaphosa ascended to leadership is not going to help us in this instance since they were a calibre of leaders with specific traits that qualified them as revolutionary intellectuals. Unfortunately the latter can't be said of the current crop of "wanna be leaders".
It is so perplexing how the current ANC youth league leaders compare themselves to the 1944 generation but have they sat down to analyse the calibre and profile of the youth then? For starters, the first president of the ANCYL, Anton Lembede had already achieved Master's Degree and studying towards a doctorate when he passed away, only at the age of 33.
I need not go on with the academic accomplishment of Tambo, Mandela, Mda and others. Walter Sisulu, who was a gifted strategist and a mentor to Mandela emerged shoulders above his peers as a key player in the pack, albeit his lack of higher education. No doubt he was in a class of his own as a revolutionary intellectual.
Is it that difficult to wait a bit for your actual turn Mbalula? Or is it as footballers would say, you want to take full opportunity of a "true-pass" from the ANCYL for a quick goal? The issue of how youthful one should be when they take positions of leadership is a fruitless exercise as Mbalula unwittingly confesses in his article that generational mix is already taking place at the provincial level.
Well I have got interesting news for you Minister Mbalula, generational mix is indeed taking place in both the National Executives of the ANC and government and yours truly are a perfect personification of that.
Rather than embark on a sterile debate, I suggest that our energies leading to Mangaung be spent on a discussion on how the ANC could accelerate the rate at which it produces an all rounded cadreship that is capable of tackling politics, economics and international relations affairs with more vigour and clarity.
Walter Mothapo is a member of the Interim Provincial Executive Committee of the SACP in Limpopo. He writes in his personal capacity
Click here to sign up to receive our free daily headline email newsletter
