The ANC Youth League

7. Concluding notes: Class of ’44 vs Class of ’04

152 7 Concluding notes: Class of ’44 vs Class of ’04 Julius Malema, like many of the post-apartheid Youth League leaders, claims to be inspired by the organisation’s founding fathers of the 1940s. He likes to draw comparisons between the modern ANCYL and the so-called Class of ’44. These heroes of the past dared to defy a moribund older generation and force the ANC into more militant, mass-based politics. The young men, dismissed as cheeky upstarts by their elders, developed into great future leaders of the struggle: Nelson Mandela,Walter Sisulu,Oliver Tambo. By invoking the Youth League founders, Malema and his followers portray themselves as unrecognised pioneers who will energise and redirect the current ANC. As Fiona Forde puts it, ‘Malema insists he is repeating history when he attempts to steer the ANC on a new course of action, to reinvent the party.’48 Is this historical comparison credible? It may be useful 153 to conclude this book by contrasting the so-called Class of 1944 with the class led by Mbalula and then Malema, which I shall call, for the sake of convenience, the Class of ’04. Superficially, there are a number of similarities between the old and new generations of youth leaders. Initially regarded as impulsive, immature and disrespectful towards the older generation, they forced the party to take them seriously. Impatient for change, they were both successful in orchestrating a dramatic transformation of party leadership: in Bloemfontein in 1949 and in Polokwane in 2007. They were able to do this through mobilising a block of delegates at the national conference. They combined a fierce loyalty to the party with deep and vocal criticism of the leadership, with the professed aim of ‘dynamising the party from within’. There are also some ideological similarities. The Class of ’44 developed the notion of Africanism and opposed cooperation with white and Indian groups; although the Class of ’04 claims a commitment to nonracialism , there is a powerful strain of old-fashioned African nationalism in their discourse or, at least, a strong assertion of African group identity. The Class of ’44 was anti-communist yet anti-western and antiimperialist . This was highly significant before the era of African decolonisation and during the Cold War. 154 They were suspicious of South African communists and, although western in many of their manners, rejected western individualism. Much the same can be said for the Class of ’04. Their anti-imperialism relates to the persistent post-colonial influence of the United States and other ex-colonial powers. In their personal lives they have adopted much of the lifestyle of western consumerism but are critical of western political institutions. Simultaneously, while embracing some of the rhetoric of revolutionary socialism, they are generally hostile to the left in South Africa. Like their forebears, they are attracted to ‘African’ solutions to social problems. The Class of ’44 analysed the land question in terms of white ‘theft’, possessors and dispossessed, and posed blunt redistributive solutions. Again,therearenoteworthyresonancesinthediscourse of the current generation. But there are some significant historical differences between the two generations of youth leadership. Perhaps the first point that needs to be made is that the Class of ’44 was far more successful. Their victory in 1949 was quite decisive, with Youth Leaguers taking 7 of the 15 National executive Committee positions, including that of secretary-general. Their political programme was adopted by the ANC. There was an extraordinary generational shift in the senior ANC leadership. Sisulu became secretary-general in his mid- 155 thirties; Tambo, Mandela and Mda became among the most powerful people in the party while in their early to mid-thirties. Nothing remotely like this happened at Polokwane. None of the Youth League leaders made it into the top six of the party. They simply backed a senior faction that won. There was some promise of material reward and a possibility of future leadership, but they certainly did not come to power through the Polokwane confrontation. Mbalula was later rewarded with a junior cabinet position. In many ways the age hierarchy reasserted itself in the exiled ANC and, in spite of the Youth League’s ‘kingmaker’ tag, has not been significantly challenged again. Secondly, and perhaps most obviously, the political context is vastly different. The ANC is no longer a struggling liberation movement facing racial segregation and routine state harassment. It is now the party in power with...