The generational mission can’t be deferred any longer

11 October 2022

In an article titled Nurturing the Fourth Generation: Defining the Historical Mission of our Generation, an article which expounds on Thandika Mkandawire’s critical reflection on the first three generations of African scholars during the post-colonial era by adding a fourth generation of scholars (the new generation of African scholars), Dr Mshai Mwangola makes the following pertinent observation in arguing for the uniqueness and specificity of what she perceives as each generation’s historical mission, “whether we like it or not, each generation of people—and that must include its intellectuals as well—are born into a specific context that presents peculiar challenges.”

Mwangola further argues that Frantz Fanon, “challenges us to the articulation of a collective definition of mission and agenda, emanating out of a careful examination of the peculiarity of the historical context within which a generation finds itself.” This collective generational mission must be conducted within the context of a generation that is, “emerging onto the scene and still has a measure of control in consciously determining the direction its future will take.”

In a country where the unemployment levels are unacceptably high, with an economy that is struggling to get off the ground and a majority of the population mainly excluded from participating meaningfully within the mainstream economy, it is incumbent upon the emerging generation within the African National Congress to seek to chart a different way forward in advancement of the National Democratic Revolution(NDR), in line with the generational mission that has been identified as Economic Freedom in our Lifetime.

Looking at the South African body politic and internal dynamics within the African National Congress, one can only conclude that the time has come for the emerging generation within the organisation to take over the levers of power and begin to accelerate the advance towards a national democratic society; intensify the implementation of ANC policies aimed at materially improving the lives of the people of South Africa in terms of living conditions and quality of life; working with and amongst the motive forces of the NDR in order to advance radical socio-economic transformation, repositioning the ANC within communities and society at large as the primary vehicle for change and as an organ of people’s power itself; wining back the hearts and minds of the motive forces of the NDR, who are the working class and the poor.

With the ANC and the country finding itself in the undesirable state that we are currently in, this generational mission cannot be deferred any longer, as an existential necessity for both the party and the country. In the words of the poem Same in Blues by the Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes, “There’s a certain amount of impotence in a dream deferred

Three parties, on my party line
But that third party
Lord, ain’t mine
There’s liable to be confusion
In a dream deferred
From river to river
Uptown and down
There’s liable to be confusion
When a dream gets kicked around.”

We must unleash a cohort of cadres from this emerging generation to take the lead within the upper structures of our movement in order to more aggressively pursue this transformative programme that is grounded on our revolutionary traditions as a movement, with the capacity to study, shape, plan, alter, grow, develop and structurally re-align our economy so that it serves the interests of the majority of the people of our country, and not an elite few as is the current reality.

As a revolutionary movement, we must enhance and sharpen the institutional capacity of the state to strategically and decisively determine the direction and set the agenda for both social and economic development, dealing with our social contradictions in a manner that will reorganise society so that we are able to fundamentally address the wants and needs of the people. We must strengthen and modernise the ANC, both as a liberation movement and a progressive political party that is geared towards contesting and winning elections.

We have to deracialise the commanding heights of our economy and build an alternative social order that will ensure that the balance of power is in favour of the motive forces of the NDR. Of course, this type of generational mission need not create generational divisions within our movement and society, in fact, it will require inter-generational cooperation and contributions.

To paraphrase Mwangola’s words from the article referred to above, “a generational mission need not result in generational divisions. The generational mission is not unrelated to that of preceding generations. It is a specific task in response to the peculiarity of the historical context in which its members find themselves, made possible only by the foundational work of those who have gone ahead.”

There is a popular and deeply entrenched narrative that the African National Congress has lost the capacity to mobilise the motive forces of the NDR and that the movement lacks the political will and boldness to drive the structural transformation of our economy in favour of the motive forces and it is up to the new generation within the ANC to rise up, take over the baton and debunk this false dichotomy through advancing its generational mission of economic freedom in our lifetime, a clarion call.

It is this generation that must fulfil these words from Ayi Kwei Armah’s novel, In the House of Life, “Let us mix the long memories of a people destroyed with new narratives of our own making, as we move into space of our own choosing, as we dream in images woven from our people’s best desires, as we plan on designs drawn from our own reflection, then make again the universe that might have been but was not, here in this place, now in this time freed for our new creation. Let us walk together, invoking the future into now.”

Mugabe Ratshikuni works for the Gauteng provincial government; He is an activist with a passion for social justice and transformation. He writes here in his personal capacity.