Dr Duncan du Bois
With national elections due in South Africa on May 29, scrutiny of party manifestos has never been more crucial. That of the newest party on the scene, Jacob Zuma’s uMkhonto Wesizwe (MK) party, which is challenging the ANC particularly in KwaZuluNatal, is a carbon copy of the SA Communist Party in every respect.
MK is politically and philosophically premised on the meaning of its cry Mayibuye, which translates as ‘come back Africa’ or ‘Africa may it return’. From that perspective follows its no-holds-barred intentions of completely removing, reversing and reclaiming all that was lost and cost during “the prolonged period of national shame since 1652”.
MK’s first priority is the abolition of the following aspects of chapter two of the SA constitution: freedom and security of person; political rights; freedom of expression; privacy; property rights.
Philanthropist, writer and thinker, Sir John Templeton, identified property rights as being essential to human rights. MK ignores that and pledges to expropriate “all” land without compensation. It justifies that as fundamental to the reclamation of Africa’s birthright. All land will be the property of the state and of traditional leadership.
From that premise it follows that nationalisation of all natural resources, mines, banks, financial and education institutions would occur. The MK manifesto leaves no doubt about this, using the words “force” and “break” to illustrate its intentions. Another word which emphasises its embrace of communism is “reverse”. All aspects of privatisation of the economy would be reversed “100%” and revert to the state.
The next logical direction of MK’s revamped version of the Freedom Charter, which correctly translates as the Servitude Charter, is the “elimination of all remnants of colonialism from cultural and political life”. Indigenous language usage would be prioritised in all aspects of official communication, in all educational institutions and law courts where Roman-Dutch law would be replaced by African jurisprudence.
From the above, it is obvious that MK rejects certain of the founding principles enshrined in the Preamble of the 1996 constitution, namely: “that South Africa belongs to all who live it, united in our diversity”; “respect those who have worked to build and develop our country”; “establish a society based on democratic values”.
Besides the above indications of the path MK intends to follow in realising Mayibuye – returning South Africa to what it was before 1652, it is disingenuous of MK to gloss over the benefits South Africa derived from innovations such as the wheel, construction, shipping and navigation, paper and pen records, textile clothing, gunpowder and the elimination of slavery and certain diseases.
In any event, MK’s policies can be summed up in a single word: dystopia. Without a free press, no South African editor would risk publishing the remarks made in this article. Worse still, even committing such remarks to electronic transmission would risk arrest and re-education in a gulag camp the likes of which Zuma brutally controlled in the 1980s in Tanzania and elsewhere.