The ANC’s battle to reclaim the sacred name Umkhonto weSizwe from Jacob Zuma’s party is nothing less than a defence of its very soul and heritage. It is a fight to safeguard a revolutionary heritage, to protect a legacy forged in blood and sacrifice, and to shield the identity of the liberation movement from brazen political opportunism. In every epoch of struggle, the liberation movement must defend not only its organisational existence, but also the integrity of its memory.
Today, the ANC finds itself in such a moment. The symbols, history, language and martyrs of our movement ― earned through blood, exile, prison and sacrifice ― have become the battlefield on which rival political parties seek moral legitimacy. As a result, the ANC has been forced into a position where it must protect through the courts, if necessary, its hard-won heritage of the freedom struggle against a range of political opportunists who try, openly or subtly, to clothe themselves in the garments of the ANC’s moral authority.
In post-apartheid South Africa, the ANC remains the party most closely associated with the liberation struggle. Its names, symbols, heroes and history are deeply embedded in the national consciousness. This is why, across our political landscape, we see parties that did not live the struggle, that did not carry the pain or the scars of apartheid, attempting to wrap themselves in the cloth of the ANC’s history.
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Some do so through speeches. Some do so through imagery. Others go as far as attempting to steal the very names and symbols that belong to the ANC and its fallen heroes.
From the DA to the EFF, Cope, the African Independent Congress (AIC), and most dramatically, Jacob Zuma’s party, the symbols and names have become a prized commodity. The most recent and most brazen example is the attempt by Zuma’s party to appropriate uMkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing of the ANC. The MK name represents fallen heroes, a history written in blood and sacrifice, not a political shortcut for opportunists seeking electoral power.
The Zuma party’s warrior logo and name is calculated to confuse voters into believing that it is a continuation of the historic MK, the glorious army of the liberation movement. When a political formation that played no role in the armed struggle adopts the MK name and symbols, it is more than confusion. It is an assault on historical truth and on the collective memory of the liberation movement.
It disrespects the dignity of the cadres who faced torture, exile, and death under the banner of MK. This tendency does not stop there. Even the EFF’s revolutionary rhetoric is built on ANC foundations.
It continues to rely on the names of ANC struggle icons such as Winnie Madikizela-Mandela for its political identity while launching constant attacks on the organisation she served with loyalty. The irrefutable truth is that even those who have broken away from the movement cannot escape the gravitational pull of ANC history. This is made evident in the case of Cope.
Cope’s very formation was rooted in a calculated political manoeuvre to appropriate the ANC’s historic identity. It was the moment the oppressed declared, in one united voice, the vision of a future South Africa. The Freedom Charter remains the ANC’s lodestar and a compass that articulates the people’s aspirations and outlines the architecture of a just, equal and democratic society.
For Cope to steal this sacred name for political opportunism was nothing short of a deliberate attempt to confuse the masses and wrap itself in the garments of a history it never built and never defended. The theft of this historic identity was therefore an attack on the revolutionary memory of our people. The ANC fought this identity theft in every available space, for it understood that names, symbols and history are not ornaments, but the lifeblood of the struggle.
Cope continued to vulgarise a sacred chapter of our liberation heritage. Their actions confirmed what Lenin taught us: that counter-revolutionaries seek to appropriate revolutionary symbols only to drain them of meaning and mislead the oppressed. But the masses know the truth. Today, the real Congress of the People lives not in the name of a breakaway faction, but in the revolutionary traditions of the ANC, while the fake Cope is now lying in ruins, ready to be consigned to the dustbin of history.
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