An Open Letter to the ANC

Dear ANC

When you first came home, you were like a long lost parent to me. I had grown up with stories of your bravery; how you came in and out of the country under cover of darkness to bomb places, fighting for my freedom. Despite this, it was the Tsietsi Mashininis that truly moved me. It was the Stephen Bikos that were immediately inspiring to me. They were here – fighting here, dying here. You, on the other hand, were either in prison, in other lands or in legendary stories.

I felt skeptical ANC. I did not vote in 1994. When everybody queued to exercise their votes on that historic day, I was shooting a movie depicting South Africa as the rape capital of the world. It was fitting because apartheid was essentially about raping people spiritually, economically, socially, physically and in every other way that it could. I wanted to remind the world that we had a lot to undo, that voting alone was not going to solve all our problems.

I withheld my vote in 1994 because I did not know you then ANC, and wished to observe you from the sidelines first, to see if you could be trusted. Four years later, I was truly impressed by how well you had done since your return. I have since voted for you in every election we’ve held since 1994 and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Frankly, I don’t see who else can do a better job than you at the political helm of our nation, which is why I am angry at the media’s portrayal of you as a thieving, looting and immoral leader with no ethical boundaries.

It’s been seventeen years since you started running South Africa. An old petrol attendant summed up your leadership throughout this period when he told a friend of mine just before our latest local elections that if anyone should vote for you, it’s South Africa’s whites, because, in his opinion, nothing has changed.

In many respects the old man is right. Many black South Africans are worse off today than they were under apartheid. The gap between South Africa’s rich and poor is the widest on earth. In a nutshell, you have super-charged white people’s stockpiling of wealth, while black South Africans have remained where they were before 1994 or had their fortunes reversed. You have been a brilliant political fighter, but a dismal economic warrior for black South Africans.

Considering that we are in the midst of an economic war, I want you to know that South Africa’s white-owned media are fighting against the advancement of black people in the economic arena, using the same tactics they used during apartheid to block us from attaining political freedom when they used to scream “BLACK DANGER” at the top of their lungs and as often as possible. Those who consumed this media then saw black people as the scariest, least humane and the most crazed people on earth. South Africa’s white media sold this lie as truth in preparation for apartheid politicians to step in, detain us for as long as they wanted for whatever reason they deemed fit, torture us in whatever way they chose and murder us at will without guilt.

Today, this same white media use the same “black danger” tactics to hold black South Africans back on the economic front. The new lie that they are peddling is that we Africans are corrupt thieves who know nothing about financial matters and that, if we are entrusted with any part of our country’s economy, South Africa will become an economic basket case: “Black danger” all over again, by the same white media that did this to us during apartheid.

What I find disturbing about you ANC, is how you have been acting at the behest of this corrupt, racist and selfish media ever since you returned home; the countless number of your true friends that you have kicked in the teeth whenever a white headline traduced them. You did this to Mac Maharaj. You did this to Jacob Zuma. You did it to me twice at the SABC. And yet, when Garreth Cliff tweeted these horrible words: “Manto is dead. Good. A selfish and wicked bungler of the lowest order. Rotten attitude and rancid livers – all three of them …,” about one of your truest friends and followers, the late Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, you invited him for tea with President Zuma!

Your loyalty to whites, it would seem, is unwavering. Your loyalty to black people, on the other hand, extends as far as the white media dictate. To this day, ANC, you still haven’t honoured those black people who represented you internally while you were in exile through organizations such as the United Democratic Front, like the late Archie Gumede. Yet, you give lectures to honour your white comrades on an annual basis.

I wrote this letter, ANC, to remind you who put you in power; to tell you that our love for you is not unconditional and that your utter economic bias in favour of white South Africa at the expense of black South Africa is undoing all your victories.

When you look in the mirror next time ANC, I want you to remember who you are.

Sincerely yours

Eric Miyeni