U.S. credentials to fight terrorism questioned

By M. S. Prabhakara

CAPE TOWN, OCT. 2. The latest issue of ANC Today, the weekly online journal of the African National Congress, has two interesting comments reflecting the subtle nuances in the reaction of the organisation to the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington.

In his article, ``Fighting Terrorism: The uses and abuses of anti-communism'', Dr. Pallo Jordan, senior ANC leader and member of its National Executive Committee, questions the credentials of the U.S. to lead a global fight against terrorism, pointing out the crucial fact widely ignored in the South African media that the Taliban is a creation of the U.S. and its ally in another kind of holy war driven by virulent anti-communism and the destruction of the Soviet Union.

``Anti-communism, they are discovering today, is a double edged sword. While its keen blade helped sweep away what President Reagan once called `the evil empire', on its backswing it returned as a guillotine to wreak terrible havoc in the very citadel of U.S. power. There is a lesson there, somewhere!'', Dr. Jordan writes.

The analysis is interesting in that Dr Jordan, though on the left, is not a member of the South African Communist Party and has openly opposed some of the party's theoretical formulations. However, he has also consistently opposed ideologically driven anti-communism.

Even more interestingly, reflecting the absence of a clear-cut position in the ANC on the terrorist attacks and, perhaps more to the moment, on `anti-communism' is what one might describe as the `qualified disclaimer' in the form of an editorial note at the end of the article: ``Z. Pallo Jordan is a member of the ANC National Executive Committee. This article is written in his personal capacity''.

The disclaimer is significant in the context of the revival of calls within sections of the ANC for an end to the tripartite alliance, meaning that the party should make a break with the South African Communist Party.

In another interesting comment in his weekly ``Letter from the President'' in the latest issue of ANC Today, Mr Thabo Mbeki has called upon South Africans to draw lessons from the way the American people have `shed their differences' and have shown a `shared patriotism' following the terrorist attacks.

``The predominant sentiment that has informed the thinking and the actions of the majority of the population and the country's institutions is the need for the people to put aside their differences and to respond together to a catastrophe of immense significance to their country. ...Another major lesson we should draw... .is the importance of a shared patriotism, such that the people recognise that there are some issues that constitute what should be considered as being of national interest and importance.''

Mr. Mbeki also speaks of the ``strong sense of a common patriotism among the American people that enables the overwhelming majority of these people at all times to express and demonstrate love for their country, its cultures, its constitution, its democratic practices, its institutions and the possibilities it provides for personal fulfilment.''

The exhortation addressed in the main to the party faithful coincided with the meeting of the ANC's National Executive over the weekend, the first since the two-day general strike (Aug. 29- 90) over the issue of privatisation of state- owned assets called by COSATU and supported by the South African Communist Party, both partners in the tripartite alliance led by the ANC. The issues have been endlessly debated by the alliance, the polemics sometimes harsh and bitter, though the Government shows no signs of relenting in its commitment to privatisation.

As always, such polemical exchanges have resurrected the expectation, indeed generously offered advice, in the media, that the ANC should and would bring the tripartite alliance to an end, meaning that it should make a break with the SACP. Thus, once again the calls for an end to the so-called dual membership allowing SACP members to be also ANC members. The ANC, however, has not obliged and has reaffirmed the leading role of the tripartite alliance in the process of transformation.

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