ANC top 20 violent fights.
Thank the Lawd I aint no ANC member
The ANC’s top 20 violent fights
by Inside Politics
FEATURE: Everyone knows the ANC is factionalised and infighting is rife but how bad is it? We hear scattered reports of violence and mayhem at ANC meetings but do we have the full picture? In an attempt to demonstrate just how serious the divisions are and to what extent the party is, literally, at war with itself, I present the ANC’s top 20 violent fights: a range of examples of how the party has turned in on itself over the past few years and the bloody consequences.
The ANC’s top 20 violent fights
By: Gareth van Onselen
4 July 2012
The ANC is fundamentally fractured along a number of different fault lines. Often the political tectonic plates shift and the party’s members moved from mere disagreement to actual physical violence. At its worst people have died, murdered or assassinated (subject, perhaps, for another archive). On a more regular basis, though, ANC members have resorted to assaulting each other as the various post-Polokwane aftershocks continue to reverberate through the party’s structures.
What follows, in no particular order, is a list of the top 20 ANC violent fights since its last elective conference, as carried in the media.
No doubt they represent only a small fraction of the actual number of physical fights to have broken out inside the ANC over that period – indeed, many news stories refer to other fights not covered in the press; and I have excluded a few simply for length. Nevertheless, jointly and separately they speak to an organisation at war with itself, every representative not a member of the ANC but of a particular faction within it. And when their interests clash, so do they; the battle of ideas replaced by baying and bloodshed.
So diluted is the ANC’s internal coherence one is often tempted to resort to laughter, as any serious attempt to digest the consequences of its meltdown can only ever be profoundly depressing. Thus, while the structure of this piece is somewhat superficial, the subject is not. There are serious warning lights that signal when any democracy is in distress, none should grab one’s attention more than when the governing party turns in on itself, assaulting and murdering its own.
It is important to bring these things together in consolidated form because they demonstrate how wide spread the problem is. Each on its own, reported locally and seemingly isolated, cannot constitute all the facts and that, in turn, is to the detriment of any fuller understanding. Indeed, to try and create a full list is, I believe, an important political project someone should undertake.
That said, here are the ANC’s top 20 violent fights.
Date: July 2008.
Province: North West.
Faction: the ANC North West versus Supra Mahumpelo.
The Facts: Mahumpelo served 18 party members with letters of suspension, among them ANCYL member Kenny Morolong, who then proceeded to allegedly beat ANC sub-regional secretary Aaron Motswana and party member Sipho Phaziwe with a spanner. ANCYL members then torched the ANC regional offices, later to appear in court on charges of attempted murder, attempts to commit grievous bodily harm and malicious damage to property.
Injuries: Serious injuries to Phaziwe and Motswana.
Quotable Quote: “They are trying to intimidate people” (The MKMVA in the province, in suggesting the charges were trumped up by Mahumpelo to get rid of his opponents.)
Source: Mail & Guardian, 17 July 2008.
Date: July 2008.
Province: Northern Cape.
Faction: Neville Mompati versus John Block.
The Facts: An ANC general meeting of its Batho Pele branch devolved into violence when supporters of each faction came to blows about the attendance register. A group of Block supporters allegedly forced their way in, assaulting and manhandling members.
Injuries: Several members were bruised and beaten.
Quotable Quote: “A fight ensued over the register and they assaulted branch member Harchris Magama. He was injured on his leg and they knocked him on his face between the eyes.”
Source: Diamond Fields Advertiser, 30 July 2008.
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