From: msncra01@uctvax.uct.ac.za
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african,sanet.talk.politics
Subject: Re: The ANC and the SACP 
Date: 12 Aug 92 10:05:07 +0200
Organization: University of Cape Town

In article <1992Aug11.150224.28057@ucthpx.uct.ac.za>, 
gavan@ucthpx.uct.ac.za (Gavan Tredoux) writes:
 
> Any future election would be decided on ethnic grounds, a perverse
> population census. Here, race is subsumed by ethnicity, where phenotype
> becomes the marker rather than, say, language. Hence there will be a black
> majority. Not very controversial.

I don't understand that. You divide the population into distinct ethnic groups,
and then announce that they will vote on ethnic grounds. Maybe I'm naive, or my
analysis simplistic, but I cannot understand why, just because in the past
whites have always voted for whites, it could not happen that other people are
willing to vote as individuals. Besides, your own references to other
population group support for the NP seem to undermine your statement here.

> This is hardly a serious argument. The vast majority of ANC support
> is black, the other racial groups are vastly underrepresented. 
> Again, that's hardly controversial and isn't something the ANC would
> deny - they just claim it's not important, which is obvious nonsense.

But again, ANC organisation must be understood within historical context, the
laws forbidding inter-racial political organisation, etc. So it is not
obviously an ethnic organisation, as you seem to imply.

> However, the
> influence of the SACP in the ANC is far-reaching and well-documented.
> Looking at the Nat. Exec, rather a lot of the top brass have
> joint membership. But I'm not running a red scare, although I argue
> it has to taken into account.

What do you mean, it has to be taken into account? That communism is inherently
bad, so we have to beware of it, seek it out and avoid it? I don't understand
the innuendo here.

> You're welcome to the Mandela tin-god club. I prefer to ignore
> cults of personality, and the "Dr" part is plain bad manners.
> You never use your honorary doctorate in your title(s), unless you're
> the insufferable Buthelezi. Most amusing watching the parade of local
> varsities awarding him doctorate after doctorate. Flunkies and sycophants.

Agreed about the 'varsities, but Aristotle suggests that a ruler of a polis
that does not need politics should be a perfectly good man. I'm not suggesting
Mandela's a perfectly good man, but I am suggesting that his sincerity and good
will are a vast improvement on anything we've had before in government. I'm not
in a tin-god club, but nor in a tin-devil club. I think the character of people
in politics is important. Character-wise, in comparison with the NP, the ANC is
composed of saints. It doesn't mean that they shouldn't be criticised, quite
the contrary, but perhaps the belief that they're trying to kill us in our beds
is wrong. I'm not presuming to know what they're really planning, or to have
'all the facts'. Perhaps I'm just being optimistic. I just have more trust in
the goodwill of people like Mandela.

PS: How does one get the machine to append one's name in brackets after one's
address?
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Craig Mason-Jones, MSNCRA01
University of Cape Town, RSA
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Newsgroups: soc.culture.african