I can’t shake the feeling that the SACP is like that friend who abandons you when your fortunes turn for the worst.
You know that friend who is happy to party with you every weekend when you have money, but once the money is gone, starts putting space between you and them.
The SACP’s insistence on placing distance between itself and the ANC is rather painful to watch.
While the SACP is progressively distancing itself from the ANC, it is saying the opposite.
It is effectively saying the distance is good for the ANC, and the alliance.
This is the same line of thinking that Jacob Zuma, that SACP favourite, espoused when he started a new political party.
Zuma said he would always be an ANC member while starting a political party that effectively stole the colours, the name, members and the essence of the ANC.
Maybe this approach was taught somewhere as a political strategy.
Only the SACP or communist sympathisers can sell such a contradictory concept, to oppose a political party by contesting the same elections with it, while claiming to do so for its benefit.
The concept is so preposterous it risks making one feel you may be missing something.
In that moment of confusion, it is alluring to assume the SACP may be saying something so deep that mere mortals cannot grasp.
The truth is, the SACP is continuing to sell nothing at a very steep price, just like Jacob Zuma.
“I am an ANC member, for your information, and I will remain one until the end.
“But I will also be uMkhonto weSizwe nevertheless; what a wonderful thing to say,” Zuma said in one of his public statements.
Zuma made this statement with his usual glee, as if enjoying the privilege of making such a contradictory statement in public without even a sliver of conscience.
The SACP seems to be enjoying this same level of glee at the ability to publicly state what mere mortals could not say.
Not only is the SACP insisting to say these things, but they also insist on saying this with a straight face while addressing ANC members in places where ANC comrades have gathered. You have to admit that this level of gusto is rare.
“On this day, we are saying to you comrades, we feel the Communist Party, on the issue of property relations and economic transformation, we want to come in and participate directly in the state, to assist you to drive this project to move in a faster pace.”
These exceptionally contradictory words were said by SACP first deputy secretary Madala Masuku during the recent ANC January 8 events.
You have to give Masuku some credit for his bravery, considering he has been sent into these heated moments where he must defend the indefensible, among ANC comrades.
His boss, Solly Mapaila, is increasingly opening the gap between himself and ANC events.
If this is some psychological political game Mapaila is playing here, I must say, it is rather brutal. The ANC comrades must be feeling a bit snubbed.
Coming back to Masuku’s statement, one would have to ask him, what further direct participation does the SACP want?
The SACP has been enjoying that direct participation through the ANC since 1994?
In that time, not only could it not speed up the famed national democratic revolution, or the outright socialism the SACP hoped to establish, it helped entrench corruption and unemployment instead.
What is even more tragic is that the SACP does not recognise its role in the current shape of the country.
As it distances itself from the ANC, it pretends the ANC alone presided over the criminality, joblessness and despair that has overtaken SA.
At some level, the ANC and SACP deserve each other.
However, this fact does not reduce the disappointment of watching the death of old political dreams, some of which came from good intentions.
The political choice of the SACP will accelerate the demise of both political parties.
This kind of degeneration will unfortunately give fuel to the ultra-right fanatics who believe Africans cannot build and sustain anything of value.
Ultimately, it is good for SA to leave the old world behind.
As we build into the future, the right-wing naysayers will be proven wrong.
The building of the dreams of our forebears for true liberation will go unhindered by the old socialist contradictions.
Our lessons must lead to our own unique political economy, fit for purpose.
