New Age2.png Sharpeville lessons for the fractious PAC Qondile Khedama, The New Age, Johannesburg, 11 April 2016 South Africans witnessed a nasty scuffle on television among members of the PAC's warring factions in Sharpeville on Human Rights Day. The skirmish was about which of them was the legitimate spokesperson for the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC). A commemoration for the 69 people killed by apartheid police in Sharpeville on March 21, 1960, turned into an ugly spectacle. Mudini Maivha, who was speaking live on SABC TV as PAC secretary-general, was confronted, movie-style, mid-interview, by a group led by Brian Ntako, who claimed to be the party's regional organiser. The PAC lost the opportunity to tell millions of viewers who they were, what they represented and what Sharpeville Day meant to them. It is difficult to recall any stage when the PAC has been united. The late Mxolisi "Ace" Mgxashe, one of the unsung heroes of the PAC, never minced his words about what he saw as the dangerous path the PAC had chosen to take. In some PAC circles he was regarded as rebellious because of his enquiring mind. He wrote a book about the struggle, as mirrored in his experience and understanding of the PAC. The result was the captivating Are You With Us? The PAC had its origins in the lack of consensus in the ANC in the Africanist debate. When the Freedom Charter was adopted at Kilptown in 1955, those who championed the Africanist ideology felt this was a betrayal of the struggle. The differences erupted into the open in November 1958. At the ANC's Transvaal congress, "Africanist" members were excluded from the hall. This group resolved to break away and form a political party. The PAC was formed on April 6, 1959 in the Orlando Community Hall in Soweto. Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe, an ardent Africanist and key to the breakaway, was elected as its founding president and Potlako Leballo as secretary. The controversial Leballo, a teacher, dismissed for alleged fraud in the early 1950s, had been active in the ANC Youth League in Orlando. In May 1953 he was expelled by the Youth League's Transvaal executive, but was subsequently reinstated by his branch. In November of that year, Leballo and his group in Orlando began to produce The Africanist. Later the PAC made efforts to present the breakaway group as "militants" or "more radical", dissatisfied with the "moderateness" of an ANC unduly influenced by "non-Africans". This is how Leballo explained the split at the time. Despite this opportunism, the ANC and its allies sought to work with the PAC in the early years of exile. Ill-fated SAUF In June 1960, Oliver Tambo, who had left South Africa in March that year to help launch the international economic boycott, and Yusuf Dadoo, representing the SA Indian Congress, joined forces with two PAC officials, Nana Mahomo and Peter Molotsi, in establishing a South African United Front (SAUF). The SAUF was to last a bare 18 months. It worked in Western Europe and in some newly independent African countries, but broke up in early 1962 because of "internal PAC leaders' hostility to cooperation with the ANC". This was not to be last time that ANC attempts to work with the PAC were to break down. March 21 was a turning point in the history of South Africa. In one of its discussion documents, the ANC asks whether the PAC is a viable alternative or a flat spare tyre. The document notes events that led to the anti-pass campaign. It is important to understand how the competing views on March 21 came about. At the ANC conference in Durban on December 16, 1959, the president-general, chief Albert Luthuli, announced that 1960 would be the "Year of the Pass". The ANC planned mass action and, for March 31, a nationwide programme that would coincide with the anniversary of the 1919 anti-pass campaign. A week later, the PAC breakaway group held its first conference in Joburg. Blatant PAC opportunism At its conference in December 1959, the ANC voted unanimously to launch a countrywide campaign against the pass. The campaign would begin on March 31, 1960, and culminate on June 26 with a great bonfire of passes. The PAC, fresh from the failure of its Status Campaign, found itself adrift. As Mandela put it: "They were a leadership in search of followers, and had yet to initiate any action that put them on the political map." It was in this context that the PAC suddenly announced that it, too, was launching an anti-pass campaign on March 21, 10 days before the launch of the ANC campaign. "It was a blatant case of opportunism. Their actions were motivated more by a desire to eclipse the ANC than to defeat the enemy," Mandela wrote. Sharpeville points to the foundation on which the PAC was constructed. It calls on the PAC's broader membership to do some soul searching. The continual scuffles among members say volumes about the PAC's leadership and organisational discipline. . Qondile Khedama is a communications practitioner and social commentator. He is head of communications in the Mangaung metro. He writes in his personal capacity From: http://tnaepaper.co.za/DRIVE/main%20edition/11042016/epaperpdf/8.pdf -- -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . 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