ANC welcomes constructive criticism

I could not help but find it a revolutionary responsibility to respond to Mr Siyanda Mhlongo’s letter (ANC is a shadow of its former self, Courier, January 17).
It would appear that Mr Mhlongo’s obsessive hatred of President Jacob Zuma has meddled with the manner in which he analyses, generally. Mhlongo has programmed and conditioned himself  so much that he takes swipe at anyone putting concrete things into perspective by ‘creatively’ coming up with the term “Zumanist”.
But let me not stoop as low as Mhlongo by attacking his person, in the manner that he attacks the person of Zuma. Rather I stick to the truth to attempt to  neutralise the distortions that Mhlongo penned.
The culture of the ANC is that constructive and self-criticism are greatly welcomed and appreciated. I hope even despite Mhlongo’s wandering in ‘a political wilderness’, he still remembers this fundamental principled stance of the movement.
As a Number One, self-anointed Jacob Zuma critic, Mhlongo has chosen to dedicate a large portion of his time to ‘picking and choosing’ points with which he would load his cannon.
The fact that Mhlongo chooses to selectively pick what he regards as giving rise to the demise of the ANC, ‘internal contradictions emanating from factionalism, cronyism, nepotism, enrichment and bribery…’, resonates the disapproval of many about this man’s general analysis. Mhlongo wrongfully insinuates that before Zuma none of these tendencies existed. In actual fact we have seen a decline of these after 2007.
Mhlongo would need to be reminded of how such instruments were used by the ‘class 96 project’, to alienate, eliminate and sideline those it viewed as its opponents. I am vividly reminded of how Mhlongo supported the use of state machinery in pursuit of Zuma and ‘his cronies’. This I mention because of Mhlongo’s public support for the contravening of the ANC’s culture, which would have been committed by allowing Mbeki a third term.
Mhlongo continues to use tribalist slurs to try and beef-up his rather thin argument, wherein he cites, ‘the security cluster had to be Zulufied’. Had Mhlongo been a sound analyst, he would have known that tribal orientation had (when they persecuted Zuma) and still have, nothing to do with material manifestations that Mhlongo refers to as ‘internal contradictions’.
The emergence of Zuma in Polokwane did not actually ‘murder the Scorpions’ but rather defeated the use of state institutions to castrate fellow comrades. It buried the advance towards gross self accumulation by those whom were beneficiaries of the ‘class 96 project’.
The ANC remains dedicated and committed to its historical vocation of suppressing inequalities and delivering a better life to all. This is the factual truth that Mhlongo and other ANC detractors should live with.
SANDILE KHUBISA
Ndwedwe (Letter shortened – Ed.)