MODULE 8: Zuma, the rule of the ANC and the possibilities of change

READINGS:

  1. Pallo Jordan (2012), ‘Speech at the 20th anniversary of the Bisho Massacre’ (7 September)
  2. Ngoako Ramatlhodi (2011), ‘ANC’s fatal concessions’, The Times, 1 September
  3. Sibusiso Ngalwa (2011), ‘God is on the ANC’s side, Zuma tells crowd’, Sunday Times, 5 February
  4. Jane Duncan (2012), ‘Voice, Political Mobilisation and Repression under Jacob Zuma’ in Marcelle C. Dawson and Luke Sinwell (eds.), Contesting Transformation: Popular Resistance in Twenty-First-Century South Africa (London: Pluto Press)
  5. Dale T. McKinley (2014),‘Secrecy and Power in South Africa’ in New South African Review 4: A Fragile Democracy – Twenty Years On, edited by Gilbert M Khadiagala, et al. (Johannesburg: Wits University Press)
  6. Neville Alexander (2010), ‘South Africa: An unfinished revolution?’ Pambazuka, Issue No. 482 (20 May)

KEY QUESTIONS:

  1. Do you think that South African society under the political rule of the ANC has changed much (since apartheid) in relation to violence, inequality and racial division?
  2. How do you respond to the argument that the general lack of transformation since 1994 cannot be blamed on the ANC but rather largely on apartheid and those outside of the ANC/liberation movement?
  3. Zuma regularly makes use of religious rhetoric to try and convince people into supporting and/or voting for, the ANC. Do you think this approach is appropriate or valid?
  4. To what extent is the militarisation of the police and the securitisation of the state linked to the ways in which the ANC government has responded to protest/dissent under the Zuma government?
  5. What do you think needs to happen for South Africa to ‘finish’ the revolution that was started by the workers and poor as part of the earlier liberation struggle?

Course Outline