City Press

Guest Column

EFF’s loss did nothing for ANC’s reputation

2017-03-05 06:10

The Constitution

Makhosini Nkhosi
The “failure” by Julius Malema and his Red Berets to get the ANC to support their motion to have the Constitution amended so that land could be expropriated without compensation was a welcome loss. But it was worse than a hollow victory for the ANC, and one it will probably regret later.
Remember that, recently, President Jacob Zuma intimated that the party may have the Constitution amended to allow for land expropriation without compensation. Recent history has taught us that former liberation movements that face a possible loss of political power often resort to playing the land card to galvanise popular support.
The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and its strategists saw this as a weapon the ANC could use more effectively than it ever could, and figured out a way to delegitimise the ANC and wrest back the moral high ground, at least when it comes to land.
The ANC, which is permanently lethargic – its leaders have bigger fish to fry ahead of the December electoral conference – surrendered the fight to the EFF. By opposing the motion, it severely weakened Zuma at best, and, at worst, projected the party as out of touch and not quite serious about radical land reform.
Yes, the EFF outfoxed the ANC in Parliament on Tuesday.
How does the EFF find it so easy to run rings around the ANC the way it does? The EFF is on top of its game with its young and hungry political operators in Malema, Floyd Shivambu, Mbuyiseni Ndlozi and others.
The ANC does have similar talent, but they are “deployed” in government and other places, where their political voices are muted.
ANC leaders, who mostly serve in Parliament and the executive, are absorbed in the game of Survivor as they fight hard for the powerful positions that will be contested at the December conference. What makes matters worse is that they have to influence the membership in person, which is a costly and time-consuming exercise because they are not allowed to openly campaign. Thanks to their preoccupation with the conference, Parliament and executive duties suffer.
This leads to the real problem facing the ANC: it is stuck in a political strategy formed in 1997, when it had no real challengers and minimal internal issues. It was the year that saw former president Thabo Mbeki and Zuma elected unopposed as party president and deputy president, respectively. It was the year in which former president Nelson Mandela gladly surrendered power to a younger man who was not his first choice.
The ANC is a totally different animal now. It needs to start adapting to the 21st-century way of doing politics or prepare for its eventual demise. The ANC needs to modernise.
Crying victim to the bogeyman that is “white monopoly capital” is more a poor reflection of its own performance as a ruling party than it is the intransigence of those who control the economy.
After its dismal showing in last year’s local government elections, the party promised to become more introspective. Instead of going back to its supporters and voters, the ANC has been very busy speaking to itself. Branches and regions are party machinery, not its target audience.
This lapse has cost the ANC a golden opportunity to reboot itself by being informed by its support base. With a denialist Zuma downplaying the losses, the party is bound to repeat the loss and even do worse in two years’ time.
To modernise itself, the party must go back to basics. Its main tasks are to govern the country and lead society. To be effective in that regard, the ANC doesn’t need the kind of bloated structure it has – it needs a lean and mean force. At Luthuli House, it needs only a general secretary or CEO, overseen by the party president or chairperson and a national executive committee with fewer members. Functionaries must be professionals selected from the best its membership has to offer.
Elections that should matter are national, provincial and local government contests, not party positions. The ANC must allow its support base to nominate its candidates for such elections. Nothing energises the support base quite like being involved in such important contests, and that also keeps the base engaged. Engaged supporters energise their families and friends to go out and vote for their party when it matters.
An analysis of social-media insights suggests that ANC supporters want to have a say in political matters pertaining to the ANC. They long for the days when the ANC was a congress of the people and not a congress of “members in good standing”. However, the party isn’t hearing these voices because it is atrocious when it comes to public engagement.
This has also led to the popular belief that it has become arrogant.
When leaders only need to impress the voters and not the party bosses to earn and keep their jobs, they will do better for the party and the country. That will encourage excellence and the party will always field the best among its membership and not the most conniving.
As we defer the dream, 2017 will be bumpier, and the likes of the EFF and the DA are rubbing their hands with glee.
Nkosi is an independent strategic communications and public engagement specialist

Descendants that scattered & lost their way

War History Online

The Harlem Hellfighters – The Most Famous African-American Combat Unit of World War I

Nov 2, 2016 George Winston

 

15th Infantry in France, wearing French helmets.

 

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In World War I, nearly 380,000 African-Americans served in the U.S. Army. African-American soldiers primarily served in the 92^nd and 93^rd Divisions.
While there was no official segregation policy outlined in the draft, African-American volunteers were told tear off one corner of their military identity cards so they could be identified and separated from their white counterparts.
These all-black units served mostly under white officers and were assigned to non-combat roles, such as digging ditches, building roads, and supplying the front lines.
Throughout the course of the war, only about one in ten African-Americans in the U.S. military served in a combat role. The 369th Infantry Regiment of the 93rd Division, nicknamed the Harlem Hellfighters, was one of the exceptions.
The 369^th Infantry Regiment was originally shipped to France in December of 1917. They were meant to stay on the side-lines, but their fortunes changed when General John Pershing assigned them to the 16^th Division of the French Army. The French Army, unlike the Americans, were happy to accept any soldier willing to fight, regardless of ethnicity.
In March 1918, the regiment began training under French command. Although the assigning of these soldiers was expected to be temporary, but members of the 369th never again served under American command during the war, and by the summer they were fighting in the Champagne-Marne Defensive and the Aisne-Marne Offensive.

Harlem Hellfighters in action. Here, the men of the 369th are depicted wearing the American and British Brodie helmet; however, after being detached and seconded to the French, they wore the Adrian helmet, while retaining the rest of their American uniform. This particular image displays the action at Séchault, France on 29 September 1918 during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. They would have worn the American Brodie helmet at this time.

Known for their stubbornness and refusal to cede an inch of ground, the 369^th soon became one of the most feared and respected Allied units. They were given the nickname “Harlem Hellfighters” by the Germans, and since over 70 percent of the unit called Harlem “home”, the name stuck.

Their French allies gave them another nickname: the Men of Bronze. The Harlem Hellfighters would spend 191 consecutive days out on the front lines, the more than any other American regiment during the war.

During the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, which began on September 26 of 1918, the Harlem Hellfighters captured the town of Ripon and pushed forward one kilometer the following day. By the end of the month, they had advanced to a critical position near Séchault, capturing a key railroad junction.

These advances cost the regiment 851 men dead or wounded in a matter of days. In recognition of their bravery, 171 officers and men received medals for bravery, while the entire regiment received the Croix de Guerre from the French Government.

Off the battlefield, the Harlem Hellfighters entertained their European fellow-soldiers with jazz and American ragtime music.

The 369^th Infantry Jazz Band, also known as the Hellfighters, was led by James Reese Europe.

At the end of the Great War, the Hellfighters jazz band would perform for more than one million people as they marched up Fifth Avenue in New York City during the victory parade. Following the war, people welcomed these brave soldiers home.

Soldiers of the 369th (15th N.Y.) who won the Croix de Guerre for gallantry in action, 1919. Left to right. Front row: Pvt. Ed Williams, Herbert Taylor, Pvt. Leon Fraitor, Pvt. Ralph Hawkins. Back Row: Sgt. H. D. Prinas, Sgt. Dan Storms, Pvt. Joe Williams, Pvt. Alfred Hanley, and Cpl. T. W. Taylor.

Despite this, not much had changed in the day-to-day lives of these war heroes. The terrible ‘Red Summer’ of 1919 saw the eruption of anti-black riots in twenty-six different cities. The lynching of African-Americans was on the rise.

At least ten of the seventy-seven lynching victims were war veterans and some were even lynched while in uniform. It would take another war, as well as decades of civil rights movements before equality was achieved.

The U.S. military remained segregated until 1948, and it wasn’t until very recently that some of the inequality was addressed and partially remedied.

In 2014, legislation was passed in Congress to pave the way for Sgt. Henry Johnson, who served in the 369^th regiment, to receive the Medal of Honor for his actions during World War I.

Due to racism in the Armed Services, many African-Americans were not awarded  the honor for their services in the Great War.

As for those soldiers who fell in battle, a total of 169 came from the 369^th Infantry Regiment, they are buried at ABMC cemeteries. A majority are at Meuse-Argonne, but some soldiers were laid to rest at Aisne-Marne, Oise-Aisne, St. Mihiel, and Suresnes.

All AMBC sites are integrated—race and rank had no influence on a dead soldier’s final resting place.