Politics
South Africa: ANC marks 100th aniversary
“We would run six hours nonstop with female comrades in front, from whom the whole company or platoon will take the pace,” he recalls. “But today, the weakest is overtaken and left behind to tire and die.”
Africa’s oldest liberation movement is kicking off the festivities with a golf tournament, an event critics say shows how the grassroots-based movement has morphed into an elitist-run political party.
More than 100,000 people are expected for the ANC centenary festivities, including 46 heads of state and a dozen former presidents, the party says. Nobel peace laureate Desmond Tutu is coming, though it’s unclear whether Mandela will make an appearance.
The 93-year-old icon’s public appearances have become increasingly rare, though he did attend the closing ceremony of the World Cup in 2010. He also made a surprise appearance at a campaign rally ahead of the 2009 election, when the ANC faced unprecedented competition from a breakaway party.
“I would be nothing without the ANC,” Mandela said at a 2008 party rally marking his 90th birthday.
The political party representing South Africa’s impoverished majority already has drawn criticism for spending 10 million rand (nearly US$1.5 million) of public money to buy the church where it all began.
The Wesleyan church is the focus of this weekend’s centenary celebrations in Bloemfontein, a city in the heart of the country. It was here that black activists and intellectuals founded the liberation movement that would help lead the decades-long struggle against racist rule.
Until just 20 years ago, blacks were evicted from their homes and herded into separate suburbs, forced to work under slave-like conditions on mines and farms. Families were separated under legalized race discrimination so that white entrepreneurs could take advantage of poorly paid black laborers.
The best parks, beaches and restaurants were reserved for the white minority, with signs in Afrikaans saying “Net Blankes” — Whites Only. Some shops would only serve blacks through a hole in the wall.
