It can only be those who are the most naive within our ranks who can lay claim to the rise of lobby groups, mainly but not exclusively, white by definition lobby groups as a mere innocuous development that pose no political threat to the revolution. This grouping, more emerging, and so noticeable in their strong oppositional postures, mostly wielding money to fund their way and having a strong voice that disgorges to the society an attention to listen, needs a special priority from the movement and the alliance as a whole.

They project themselves as a voice of reason, intellectually astute, morally beyond reproach and espousing all that Mandela represented in his Presidency and, therefore, pose themselves as paragons of this restoration thereby appealing to the conscious of all those who might be socially classified as middle class and politically blight to therefore join the defenders of Constitution and the moral fibre that, according to them, is waning under the current leadership of our government.

Never before after 1994 have we seen much activism and confidence from whites outside of the formal political parties like NNP, DP and Conservative Party. Even these parties' oppositional activities then were only within Parliament and Legislatures cautiously without standing on the way of democratization that the ANC was and is bringing about. Where does this resurgence, rejuvenation of this liberal confidence comes from?

This grouping which is stratified in various areas of interest has successfully co-opted within the black Africans those that are termed "voices of reasons" and people of "high moral compass" in their individual corners to use the power of a pen and powers of podiums to propagate a view of a black government that has degenerated to atrophy and trapped into a whirlpool of ignominy and a leadership that oscillate like a pendulum ball in hither and thither. This is the foci of what they inveigh against the current government in an obtuse impish insolence.

For us this concern about this emergent tendency, of course, does not negate our belief into a vibrant civil society movement that should be active in the areas they elect as their focus, but we are not to support a reactionary civil society whose activism has a concealed long term agenda to emasculate, punching holes and ultimately render off-balance the very government that allows them space to ventilate.

Of course it may very well be that within ourselves as progressive forces charged with this supreme and noble responsibility to provide all-round leadership to the country and set the national agenda, that due to the many overflowing details and exigencies that are associated with being an incumbent, therefore, at the helm of society including spending a lot of time in petty internal attritions, that a vacuum in discourse has been created and became deep-seated. This vacuum is now so palpable that forces that still harbour an ill-fate for a black government have opportunistically stampeded to fill the gap and are setting the national agenda for us and the country.

They set the agenda by way of public grand-standing, using Courts to pigeonhole a democratically elected government decisions or where decisions have been made, they file for their reversal so that theirs, as minority elite, must prevail. This is the extremely sophisticated and but peaceful political method exploited within the ambits of the permissibility of our own liberal Constitutional framework. It is an act of ruling from the grave by these forces.

This is the best admissible and civilized strategy for minority remnants that still abhors ANC dominance in society and government that they resort to Courts as their political battlefield to advance their agenda by rolling back ANC authority on key moments. Indeed those whose eyes cannot penetrate beyond the facade of cogent liberal monologues from these lobby voices can easily mistake them as today's super democrats than the original and genuine carriers of democracy - ANC.

Far from the edifice they portray in the radar-screen, here is their immediate real agenda:

• Their main content within this political modus operandi is to ultimately unleash societal confusion against government and ANC that it must be seen as not in charge.
• Besiege government to indecision and indecisiveness and in the process portray themselves as paragons of democracy and Constitution which the ANC has obnoxiously forsaken.
• Related to the above, is projecting the ANC government as in dissonance at its slumber.
• ANC as invective to the values laid by Mandela through his rainbow nation style of Presidency, therefore by this ill presentation of ANC, wins the heart of many mobile citizenry especially black Africans who are less attached to the struggle records of the movement and have no interests especially the youth including the despondent nay-Sayers to therefore join this agenda.

Whilst in the meantime [by this political option they use] makes them to rule from the grave through Courts but the final destination, in this long term strategy of holding the executive at ransom is to present the ANC to the society as inherently incapable to govern and push it down to its knees so that the official opposition will have a fertile ground to dissipate it and succeed electorally. It is not by accident that their frame of mind against the ruling party, the extent to which they have overdosed this, coincides with that of the DA.

The only cancerous element from our corner that creates nexuses between them and our inherently progressive elements is the fight against corruption. They know very well that we are all in this war and therefore, in their sleight of hand, appeals for tactical alliances in this front of a common war and in the process, for them, true to their objectives, they off-ramp and redirect their way to the real agenda to use corruption in government as a tainting brush against ANC government by presenting corruption as in the DNA of the ANC government and not the individuals.

It is important that we are very firm on this war-front against fraud and corruption ourselves so that we decant real and genuine soldiers in this battle and draw a solid line of demarcation against enemy drumbeats on the same cause whose intentions do not coincide with that of progressive forces. Our minimalist performance in this war against corruption will only serves to create wider void for them to exploit against us. Reducing their base on these frontiers should be a clarion call to all cadres by populating it.

The turning of Courts into decisive political battlefield to set aside executive decisions is a very serious matter. Unfortunately we are a victim of our own tortoise velocity. The question of a radical judicial transformation has never, since the dawn of democracy, been confronted with the extreme vigour of military precision. We easily get intimidated by voices within the bench and legal lobby institutions that loudly decries muzzling or judicial meddling that threatens its independence. This has left the judiciary to be an epiphany and an elusive oasis to reach out of fear. And indeed we are timid to the extreme.

Many liberation movements and left movements generally attended to this question very early after attainment of power without timidity. Nothing is neutral in a class society. It is not surprising that under the guise of law and independence some of the Court decisions very much astound us, not because we always want our way in judgements but, more often it's about interpretation of law and conclusions thereof against the background of democratic imperatives that as a country have made a choice to pursue, and whether those court decisions are enhancing or scuppering these ideals.

Science tells us that subjectivity as a factor more often invades the realm of objectivity. It is against this background that groupings such as Afriforum, FW De Klerk Foundation, and many others of similar nature must be thoroughly interrogated in terms their existence. We must ask the question: to what extent are they advancing the democratic cause under the national democratic revolution. Related to this is putting a magnifying glass on the sources of their funding and therefore the agenda of those corporate and foreign funders once identified.

It is not by accident that after 17 years in democracy we are still struggling to scratch the surface in the private sector [which is still white controlled particularly the monopoly capital] on employment equity levels, black economic empowerment and other transformative imperatives. This resistance, with the emergence now openly of groupings mobilizing against these imperatives as reverse racism begs a question of the intersections and therefore a potential of financial backing or a creation by the white conservative corporate citizens to have a political voice in this particular form.

In a country that is governed by the liberation movement; a movement that is in alliance with a Communist Party and a biggest revolutionary trade union in the Southern hemisphere, it is inconceivable for an elitist group to be allowed to hold this popular government at ransom in the interest of not the majority South Africans to which a ruling party derives its mandate to govern. To the extent that ANC rules because of popular mandate; and to the extent that people confer their collective powers to the ANC to run government, and take executive decisions including to run state institutions, to that extent, ANC government should be allowed to do so with no interference.

If those decisions are not in sync with the general expectations, and are generating a nuisance, then people must work hard to punish the ANC through electoral process after five years but don't hold it at ransom through using courts. It is from this context that we called these lobby groupings anti-majoritarian group.

We must not have a jaundice eyes in interrogating this agenda by adopting a liberal posture, a principle of democracy in general, counter revolution assumes different forms in a given conjuncture of the revolution, and expands its tentacles in various terrains where it matters most. It is easy to dismiss this through the language that merely reduce these voices to a status of civil society "watch dogs" or a representation of structures that "strengthen" our Constitutional democracy and many other liberal terms to justify their existence and thereby befogging their real scavenging agenda.

History abounds with examples of how the progressive movements are thrown out of power through fomentation of these tiny agents that grows through leaps and bounds to levels difficult to manage. The Chilean counterrevolution against Allende government and in Nicaragua against Ortega's Sandinista and many others from various material conditions of each country must continue to enlighten us.

>> Khaye Nkwanyana is the Provincial Executive Committee member of the SACP in KZN and a Regional Secretary of NEHAWU - Harry Gwala Region. This article first appeared in ANC Today, the weekly online newsletter of the African National Congress.

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