Inheritance and invention: the case of the African National Congress Youth League after apartheid

Raphaël Botiveau (Ph.D. candidate in Sociology and Political science Università degli Studi di Roma La Sapienza – Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne) Paper presented at the “One Hundred Years of the ANC: Debating Liberation Histories and Democracy Today” Conference, , September 20-24, 2011

Introduction

This paper is based on a research work conducted in 2005 as part of a Master’s degree at the

University of Paris 1, sponsored by the French Institute of (IFAS) and entitled:

“The Avatars of the African National Congress Youth League: the Invention of a South

African Youth Political Organisation (1987-2005).” In this work, which I never presented in

South Africa, I explored the trajectory of what I will call the “new” ANCYL, that launched at the turn of the 1990s and still in existence, by contrast with the “old” one that had been founded 1944. I looked at the transition from the South African Youth Congress (SAYCO) to the “new” ANCYL, at the functioning and organisation of the new structure (from a political sociology point of view), and at its relationship with its “mother body,” the African National

Congress (ANC). My thesis relied on a field research 1 composed of interviews with ex and then current members of the ANCYL, as well as on a set of SAYCO and ANCYL archives available at the University of the Witwatersrand 2. I am now doing research for my Ph.D. on the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and its role in the transformation of the mining industry after apartheid.

1. The full thesis is available online at http://www.univ-paris1.fr/IMG/pdf/BOTIVEAU.pdf Shortened versions were published in French ( Politique Africaine , no.104, December 2006, pp.81-102) and in English (IFAS, 2007 http://www.ifas.org.za/research/pdf/Cahiers-IFAS_10.pdf ). 2. They consist of two collections of SAYCO and ANCYL archives. The SAYCO collection covers a period running from 1987 to 1990 and the ANCYL compilation the years 1990 and 1991. Contemporary documents were also accessed at Luthuli House.

1 When I started that earlier research, accounts of the ANCYL were almost entirely dedicated to its bid for in the advent of the Conference. Since then the Media virtually reduced their coverage to the life and achievements of the League’s current president

Julius Malema. Moreover, it is generally and wrongly assumed that the ANCYL has always existed since 1944. In line with the conference’s aim to reflect on narratives of the struggle against “simplistic and elitist” versions of “liberation history,” I would like to give some historical depth to our understanding of today’s ANCYL. I am not referring here to the long or medium term history of the ANC, but rather to a moment in the negotiations that paved the way to the end of white minority rule in South Africa, in 1990-91. In doing so I will insist on two points: 1) the Youth League as we know it today is a recent organisation whose origins should be traced back to the late 1980s rather than to the 1940s (although the latter period plays a part insofar as the identity of present day organisation is concerned; and 2) I would like to underline the fact that the transition from SAYCO to the ANCYL, even though it was

“desired” by militants from the former organisation, was not “natural” but a process which included contentious engagements between organised youth within South Africa and the returning ANC.

The 1990s ANCYL: return of a “ghost” or creation of a “new” organisation?

My first point regards the historicity of the contemporary ANCYL. While the ANC was never disbanded as an organization but forced to operate underground after it was banned, the

ANCYL disappeared during the years of exile with only the much limited ANC Youth

Section remaining, before it was relaunched, in South Africa, in 1990-91. The Youth Section, headed by Jackie Selebi, mainly consisted of a “desk” designed to welcome young exiles or to brief activists from the internal front. The contemporary organisation is therefore just as old as

South Africa’s democracy.

2 The Youth League’s longer history is the story of successive political generations. It started in

1944 when a handful of talented young professionals decided to organise themselves both inside and on the margins of the ANC. They came to be known as the “Class of ’44” in reference to the year in which the well-known ancestor of present day ANCYL was formed.

Around the charismatic figure of Anton Lembede and his philosophy of African Nationalism 3, future leaders such as Peter Mda, Jordan Ngubane, Walter Sisulu, or Oliver

Tambo formed the organisation that would soon take control of the ANC, turn it in a mass- based movement and radicalise its action in the face of growing state repression. A shared political consciousness and experience, close professional trajectories and personal ties formed around an often common Eastern Cape origin, place of living – Soweto – and of working – Johannesburg, turned them into a social “generation.” 4 They can also be viewed as constituting an “intellectual generation.” 5 A shared opposition to the political orientations of older ANC leaders embodied at the time by President Albert Bitini Xuma, who were perceived as politically outdated, created the conditions for a “generation gap” 6 that brought on a leadership change in and deep transformation of the ANC. Their alliance was therefore not mainly based on their youthful condition for this group of young men was composed of family heads in their 40’s who were practically old-enough to be grandfathers 7. As Edward

Feit noted, “the political clash of generations is seldom clearcut. In this case, a majority of the youth and the aged allied against an aging leadership and a minority of the young.” 8 The decisive moment in their alliance came in 1949 when James Moroka defeated Xuma with the

3. Robert R. Edgar, Luyanda ka Msumza (Ed.), Freedom in our lifetime: the collected writings of Anton Muziwakhe Lembede , Athens (Ohio), Johannesburg, Ohio University Press, Skotaville Publishers, Mayibuye Books, 1996 (xx, 203p.). 4. Karl Mannheim, Le problème des générations , Paris, Armand Colin, 2005 (122p.). 5. Jean-François Sirinelli, Génération intellectuelle : khâgneux et normaliens dans l'entre-deux-guerres , Paris, Fayard, 1988 (721p.). 6. Margaret Mead, Culture and Commitment. A study of the generation gap , New York, Natural History Press, 1970 (xvii, 113p.). 7. Tom Lodge, personal interview with the author, 12 April 2005. 8. Edward Feit, “Generational Conflict and African Nationalism in South Africa: The African National Congress, 1949- 1959,” The International Journal of African Historical Studies , vol. 5, no.2, 1972, pp.181-202, p.183.

3 support of the ANCYL. He became the new president of the ANC with Sisulu as his Secretary

General.

As opposed to its historical ancestor, the “new” ANCYL, which was officially formed in

1990, came from a much different background. At a time in which youth, militancy and political violence were often assimilated 9, the contemporary youth wing of the ANC would emerge out of the combined experiences of the Congress of South African Students (COSAS, created in 1979) on the one hand, and of the mass mobilisation of the United Democratic

Front (UDF) 10 on the other hand, whose youth component relied on local Youth congresses in the townships. Those congresses were gathered under the umbrella of SAYCO, which was launched in 1987 in Cape Town. Its leader Peter Mokaba had attended the “Robben Island

University”11 and he belonged to (MK). With the ANC’s unban in 1990,

SAYCO took the initiative to relaunch the Youth League.

After this brief historical summary I would like to stress the fact that such a process of organisational maturing and (re)creation was for the least ambiguous. The transition experienced within organised youth was indeed concomitant with the broader context of

South Africa’s transition to democracy. Among former youth activists there is a tendency to

“naturalise” the transition from SAYCO to the ANCYL, as illustrated by the following statement of one former ANCYL Provincial Secretary:

“So it was a movement from CAYCO [the Cape Youth Congress], a transition you see from CAYCO to SAYCO, from SAYCO to the ANCYL. […] Our participation in the transition of the Youth League as I said was automatic in the sense that we were branches and structures of the ANC Youth League but under the banner of CAYCO and SAYCO because of the repression. […] For me, [...] there was never a time where there were any tensions, you see, because in our own understanding even before the ANC Youth League was unbanned, we knew deep in our heart[s] that

9. Jeremy Seekings, Heroes or Villains ? youth politics in the 1980s , Braamfontein, Ravan Press, 1993. On the 1980s and early 1990s also see for instance Monique Marks, “Onward Marching Comrades: The Career of The Charterist Youth Movement in Diepkloof,” History Workshop, Johannesburg, University of the Witwatersrand, 13-15 July 1994. (40p.). By the same author: Young Warriors. Youth Politics, Identity and Violence in South Africa , Johannesburg, Witwatersrand University Press, 2001. (xx, 171p.). 10 . Ineke van Kessel, « Beyond our wildest dreams. » The United Democratic Front and the transformation of South Africa , Charlottesville, London, University Press of Virginia, 2000. 11 . See Fran Lisa Buntman, Robben Island and Prisoner Resistance to Apartheid , Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2003 (xviii&340p.).

4 we [were] the Youth League but we [could not] be the Youth League because of apartheid. We all wanted to be named the ANC.” 12

Such a recollection underlines a strong attachment and identification to the ANC. However, it ignores the fact that the ANCYL did not exist as an organisation at the time and that the links between the ANC Youth Section and SAYCO were limited until 1990, although the latter subscribed to the agenda of the ANC. Another ex-member of both SAYCO and the ANCYL recalled:

“According to my understanding of things, there was never a question, in exile, to turn the Youth Section into a mass-based organisation. (…) It therefore became defunct, really, it became defunct in the literal sense. (…) But because the youth movement inside the country had grown and been supported for several years, like the UDF, it was commonly accepted (…) that when the ANC would come back we would become the ANCYL. Some organisations like SASCO and COSAS knew that they were mere extensions of the ANC.” 13

This last point is interesting for if SAYCO indeed became the ANCYL, SASCO and COSAS remained independent structures though they were also part of the broad Congress movement.

The organisational differentiation between the Youth Section and SAYCO is another important point to recall and, just like another ex-activist stresses:

“There wasn’t a direct link with the Youth Section. The Youth Section itself wasn’t an organization [that people could join], it was almost like a desk that was created in Lusaka just to look after youth affairs.” It was designed to manage the influx of young people arriving in exile but when someone from the inside would go to a conference overseas, in Sweden for instance, he or she would inevitably be in contact with the Youth Section, sometimes people stopped in Lusaka to be briefed.14

According to Fikile Mbalula, ex-ANCYL president and current Sport and Recreation

Minister, it was in fact difficult to belong to SAYCO without having anything to do with

MK 15 . The leadership of the ANC met that of SAYCO in Lusaka at least twice in August-

September 1989 and April 1990. Hence if SAYCO and the ANC Youth Section were distinct organizations, it is also worth remembering that the call for unifying the Youth and more broadly the anti-apartheid movement under the umbrella of the ANC was a militant one and

12 . Nomi Nkondlo, personal interview, 20 April 2005. 13 . Personal interview, 8 April 2005. 14 . Neville Naidoo, personal interview, 8 April 2005. 15 . Fikile Mbalula, personal interview, 13 April 2005.

5 constituted a major demand on the part of activists. It is probably for such a reason that reconstructions of this period a-posteriori are often interchanging and confusing organizations. Yet it is useful to recall such a differentiation, for different organisational cultures would in fact be at the basis of tensions in the immediate aftermath of the ANC’s unbanning.

SAYCO, the ANCYL and the ANC: tensions around a political merger

SAYCO held its first legal National Congress in Kangwane between the 13 th and the 16 th of

April 1990. It gathered 1.800 delegates coming from all eleven regions and from “sister” organisations -the South African National Students Congress (SANSCO), the National Union of South African Students (NUSAS), COSAS etc. In his opening address, Peter Mokaba announced that he would withdraw the document proposed by the National Executive

Committee and dealing with the role of the organisation in the building of the ANCYL. He justified his decision by stating that the question was of importance and had not been sufficiently discussed. This can indicate a certain rush on the part of SAYCO’s leadership and a lack of consultation of the organisation’s base. The question of SAYCO’s role in rebuilding the ACNYL was then discussed “from the floor”. Out of eleven regions, four said they had no united position on the matter and seven agreed with the fact that if the merger was necessary, the organisation was not yet ready to proceed in such a direction. They argued that both the organisation and its members were not well prepared and wished that the organisational transition be a “process” rather than accomplished “by decree”. They added that they favoured an open debate between SAYCO and the Youth section 16 . The ANC participated in the congress and Nelson Mandela urged the delegates to join forces with the Youth Section 17 .

16 . SAYCO, Congress minutes , National Congress, Kangwane, 13-16 April 1990. 17 . Nelson Mandela, « Statement of the Deputy President of the African National Congress, Nelson Mandela, at the Conference of the South African Youth Congress », Nelspruit, South Africa, 13 April 1990.

6 The delegates, affirming their “natural link” with the ANC, resolved to initiate a process in conjunction with the Youth Section, aimed at formally establishing a mass-based ANCYL in the country 18 . Although the final declaration adopted by the congress shows enthusiasm, there was also a sense among SAYCO’s members that the process of fusion was led from above and that it was going too fast.

This process was marked by a conflict on the issue of leadership within the future organisation. As opposed to the rebuilding of the ANC, which largely relied on previously imprisoned or exiled leaders, the construction of the ANCYL, in the absence of any significant external structure, gave a central part to the inziles. SAYCO agreed on the principle of a fusion with the Youth Section but its leaders were determined to control its process. The disbanding of SAYCO was accepted, as well as its political link with the ANC.

At stake from the very start was also the question of its organisational independence, which

SAYCO’s members wanting to see translated into the new organisation. Such a tension between the ANC’s will to control the organisational transition and the aspiration of

SAYCO’s leaders to remain full-time officials in the future organisation clearly appears 19 .

SAYCO was finally granted thirteen out of the twenty positions in the Provisional National

Youth Committee, the provisional executive committee of the ANCYL. Peter Mokaba remained its President and Rapu Molekane its National Secretary.

The provisional ANCYL was officially launched on the 27 th of October 1990 (the date of

Oliver Tambo’s birthday), at Orlando Stadium. Its preamble gave up most of SAYCO’s socialist references to focus on the objectives of the ANC: the establishment of a democratic regime in a non-racial and non-sexist society. In order to contribute to this aim, the ANCYL was to become a mass-based youth movement. It would serve the interests of the ANC, but also those of the South African youth as a whole. These two functions were to become known

18 . SAYCO, Congress Resolutions , 1990. 19 . SAYCO, NEC Meeting , 18 September 1990.

7 as the “twin tasks” of the ANCYL: 1) rallying the youth behind the programme of the ANC;

2) “championing the general interests of South African youth” in the political and socio- economic life of the country 20 . But the process of organisational transition was not over and it would take time for the loose and independent federal organisation of SAYCO to turn into the unitary youth wing of the ANC. The ANCYL would have to define itself before both the

ANC and the new and unfamiliar context of negotiations with the National Party. SAYCO would in fact not be officially dissolved until December 1991. The coexistence of the two organisations would prove precious as the ANCYL could rely directly on SAYCO’s structure, yet it would also create some confusion among young activists21 . Ultimately, the creation of the Youth League and the Women’s League of the ANC as well as the absorption of its best cadres into the ANC marked the end of the UDF, which was disbanded on the 20 th of August

1991.

I now want to address some of the tensions that characterised the relationship between the early “new” ANCYL and the ANC, both at organisational and political levels. A 1991 memorandum issued by the Youth League’s Provisional Secretariat and destined to its ANC counterpart suggests that the latter could be willingly limiting the developing of the new organisation. It details very serious material difficulties in the installation of provincial offices

(unpaid rents, disconnected water and power supply) and the deferral of the ANCYL inaugural congress, initially set to take place in April 1991. At the beginning of February that year, the League had only 108.800 members and 465 branches, far from the aim to reach a million members by April 22 . Another report to the NEC of the ANC points to the lack of a concrete and stable relationship between the two structures. It claims their relationship is ad- hoc and that such a situation may come from 1) the issue of the autonomy of the Youth

20 . ANCYL, Provisional Constitution and Guidelines for Code of Conduct , 1990. 21 . Minutes of Provisional National Youth Committee Meeting, 29 October 1990. 22 . ANCYL, Memorandum to the ANC National Executive Committee , from the ANC Youth League Provisional National Youth Secretariat, 26 February 1991.

8 League, or 2) from conservatism on the role of the youth. The document insists it is a problem for almost all regions and branches 23 .

At a political level, the main source of conflict between the two organisations regarded the negotiation process and the question of internal democracy. The Class of ‘87 was a generation of street fighters who had not been prepared to the possibility of a negotiated settlement. They were also militants used to engage in strong debates and nurtured in the UDF’s participatory tradition. In a Programme of Action adopted after the unban of the ANC, SAYCO considered its task was to mobilise the masses so that they could consider liberation as their own victory and not as a mere result of negotiations 24 . Faced with the latter process, the new ANCYL noted in a central committee meeting that the ANC was loosing the strategic initiative that had been made possible by mass mobilisation. It deplored the quasi absence of consultation from the leadership of the ANC and the rapidity of the political process. It insisted that the process leading to democracy should be democratic in itself rather than guided by a small group of experts 25 .

This followed the end of the armed struggle decided by the ANC in August 1990 against the will of youth organisations. They indeed refused to give up violence while government carried on using police repression in the townships. A youth activist of the time recalls for instance that, at the beginning of the negotiations, when the apartheid government wanted the

ANC to officially renounce armed struggle, for many young people this was inconceivable as it would have meant behaving like “Piet Retief” when he met with “Dingaan” unarmed and was subsequently slaughtered with his men 26 . The “sunset clause” would also prove a cause of disagreement between the ANC and the ANCYL. The negotiation period was therefore a paradoxical time in which the ANC asked the youth to give up some of their main repertoires

23 . ANCYL, Brief Report of the ANC Youth League PNYS to the ANC NEC , 1991. 24 . SAYCO, Programme of Action , SAYCO 3rd National Central Executive Committee, 30 July-1st August 1990. 25 . ANCYL, Draft minutes of the Extended PNYC Meeting , Durban, 2-5 April 1991. 26 . Oscar Van Heerden, personal interview, 8 April 2005.

9 of action (even though violence did not decrease), while refusing to grant them a significant role within the political process. These youth conceived themselves as ANC members, they supported their leaders and there was no risk of dissent but rather a feeling of frustration and, as in the case of the UDF, a sensation of being marginalised and left aside of the transformations they had fostered. A report by Rapu Molekane to the ANCYL after a meeting between the ANC and the government he attended in September 1992, illustrates such a feeling of marginalisation. He speaks of how strange he felt while seating face to face with the

“enemy” and his description is clearly that of a spectator and outsider rather than that an actor 27 .

Relating to the mother body: the ANCYL and the ANC face to face

Although some may argue that the current face to face between the leadership of the ANC and that of its youth wing reached unprecedented proportions the type of relation that connects the two organisations also ought to be considered in its historical dimension.

The ANCYL was relaunched on the 9 th of December 1991, in Kwandebele, where it held its

17 th national conference. The number 17 clearly suggests an “invention of tradition.”28 The

Youth League proved a double edged invention or re-invention: while aimed at legitimising an institution –the ANC- its authority and leaders, the history in which it was rooted was also one of disobedience. On the one hand this inheritance satisfied the ANC’s will to reunify its own history and to facilitate its reconstruction inside South Africa. On the other hand it jeopardised its will to control the new organisation for the latter would not only be the heir of the 1980s mobilisations but also that of a longer history of organisational and political challenge dating back to the “Class’ of 44.” As opposed to what is normally the case in

27 . Horizon , vol.2, no.3, 1992. 28 . Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger (Ed.), The Invention of Tradition , Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1983 (vi & 322p.).

10 invented traditions, the promotion of a 1940s legacy would this time also prove a means in the hands of the Youth to challenge the elders.

The dialectic between autonomy and independence is at the heart of the relationship between the ANCYL and the ANC. It is, as I have shown, intimately linked to the issue of the

“radicalism” and militancy that forms a basis of the identity claimed by the Youth League. As such, it is above all the product of the historical precedent of SAYCO.

Before the official inauguration of the new ANCYL in 1991, a document explored this issue.

The text explains that in “general political and legal terms”, ‘autonomy’ (…) means

‘independence’ which is however neither absolute nor complete: it is qualified.” 29 Autonomy concerns the administration, the organisational structure and the activities of the ANCYL; and it prevents the threat of becoming just an ‘auxiliary’.

Conclusion

The relationship between the ANC and its youth wing is ultimately one of mutual dependency. To some extent, the more radical stance of the Youth League is welcome by the

ANC as it allows it to retain its militant identity. The League is also a “preparatory school” and just like other youth political organisations, it represents a “moratorium” on youth 30 , a major path of ascent into the structures of the ANC.

However, its originality if one compares it with other youth political organisations is that it ambitions to remain autonomous, if not independent. It also pretends, quite successfully in fact, to be a king maker in the ANC. What I have tried to recall here is that its organisational identity, which has consequences on the ANC and in fine on South Africa, has a history. The current disciplinary action against before the ANC is therefore not just a farce as it is often portrayed but it also represents another attempt to discipline the ANCYL.

29 . ANCYL, Inaugural Congress, 1991, Discussion Document B , “The ANCYL and Autonomy”. 30 . Anne Muxel, L’expérience politique des jeunes , Paris, Presses de la FNSP, 2001. (190p.).

11 Youth political organisations are often under analysed. I argued that beyond the individual case of its leader, this organisation has a significance in today’s South Africa. Considering it among other actors can help us overcome some clichés such as that of the alleged depoliticisation of the “born-free generation.” Yet and more importantly, if the history of the

ANC is well researched and debated, there still remains a great deficit of works on the organisation at local level. Understanding such dynamics through multiple case studies would no doubt represent an important contribution to our understanding of post-apartheid South

Africa.

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