Charles Molele
ANC Secretary General Ace Magashule has appealed to party supporters in the Free State and other provinces to halt their plans to burn the book by investigative journalist Pieter-Louis Myburgh.
Myburgh’s book ‘Gangster State’ accuses Magashule of being one of the chief architects of State Capture, ruthless gangsterism and exaggerating his liberation struggle credentials.
Dozens of ANC supporters in Gauteng disrupted a book launch in Sandton on Tuesday evening, while the party’s youth league in the Free State announced plans to burn copies of Myburgh’s book at a dumping site in Bloemfontein.
Speaking at the commemoration of the assassination of the late SA Community Party leader Chris Hani, Magashule said he did not support any protests to burn Myburgh’s book.
“I fully agree with Blade [Nzimande]. It is unfortunate people that comrades burn this book. There is no intellectualism about it. We have fought for freedom of speech. Let those who write, write whatever they like to write. When you burn their books you make them so special. We must never be provoked by agent provocateurs.”
ANC Youth League secretary general Njabulo Nzuza said on Wednesday that the youth league condemned the burning of the book, but they supported Magashule for taking legal action against Myburgh and his publishers.
Earlier, SACP general Secretary Blade Nzimande slammed supporters of Magashule for disrupting Myburgh’s book launch in Sandton.
“These comrades who have got an issue with this book about our secretary general have a right to raise objections. We give them that. But they have no right in our name to go and disrupt the launch of the book and also threaten to burn the book. They have no right to do so. That is wrong. We are glad the ANC has condemned it because that is taking us back to the dark ages,” said Nzimande.
He accused the group of suffering from anti-intellectualism, adding that their behaviour risked destroying the movement if it was not condemned.
“Fighting for the right thing must not allow people to do wrong things. We must condemn that because if we don’t do it, it actually means we are digging the grave of burying this movement,” said Nzimande.
“This anti-intellectualism means we don’t want people who have ideas, who can have their own view and who can analyse because an analysing person is not wanted in factions as the factions feeds you its own ideas. You don’t question,” he said.
Nzimande said the SACP will ensure that the ANC achieved a decisive victory in the forthcoming May 8 general elections.
“The electoral victory of the ANC-headed Alliance and democratic forces should not be a victory of only one organisation; the ANC. Neither should it be a victory only of one party over other parties,” said Nzimande.
“We should remain mobilised even after the general election to ensure that the victory we are campaigning for becomes the victory of the masses of our people in material terms. In memory of Chris Hani, we must use the victory that we are campaigning for to build a people’s economy, with decent work and a comprehensive social security system, and to irreversibly intensify the programme to root out corruption both in the state and the economy as a whole.”
Hani was assassinated in 1993 outside his home in Dawn Park, a racially mixed suburb of Boksburg.
He was accosted by a Polish far-right anti-communist immigrant named Janusz Waluś, who shot Hani in the head and back as he stepped out of his car.
Nzimande said Walus must rot in jail for killing Hani.
“Janus Walus the convicted murderer who pull the trigger on comrade Chris is still in prison and we want to say as the SACP he must stay in jail not because we are evil people. As the SACP just like the Hani family all we want is the truth,” said Nzimande. “There are too many things that never came together in their story to the TRC that is why the TRC did not grant them amnesty. We still want the whole truth and we will never rest until we get the whole truth.”
