The apparition of the PAC leader Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe will be in Gqeberha, Eastern Cape, to guide the Africanists towards paths of solid unity, light, and peace.
It is Jaki Seroke, PAC secretary for finance, who evokes the idea of the metaphorical presence of Sobukwe at the national congress scheduled for December 11 to 14.
“This is what our preeminent ancestor Sobukwe would want things to look like. And we know he will be present, and among us in our deliberations as we seek unity among all Africanists.
“Azania has had too many unsavoury conflicts, and failures, and distraction. We invoke the spirit of Sobukwe to guide us in our deliberations.
“As we set to resolve our difficulties. Peace among Africanists must be something that lurks uppermost in our minds,” said Seroke.
Seroke describes the national elective congress on Thursday as “watershed”, an event that ought to mark a turning point in rebuilding a strong and cohesive organisation.
He says over the past few years the PAC has been working hard to move away from “the darkness of conflict into light of progress and development”.
“We don’t bother about little sideshows calculated to distort the bigger picture of what our mission ought to be. We are concerned more about the bigger picture of ensuring the PAC makes an impact in the lives of the Africanists who desperately seek direction. The upcoming congress will spell the way forward,” added Seroke.
“Sobukwe, that imposing figure who so well represented the aspirations of the African people during his lifetime, is looking up from his grave to us to complete the mission of returning the land to the indigenous people, and this is the mission we hope to accomplish under the leadership of our president, comrade Mzwanele Nyhontso.
Seroke said the PAC harbours no regrets for being part of the government of national unity (GNU).
He believes that through Nyhontso and the PAC, a strategic path was being carved to advance the land question of reclaiming the land “for the sake of the indigenous people who were pushed off it by colonialism and apartheid systems”.
“Of all the participants in the GNU, we are the smallest, yet without doubt we are making an impact, punching well above our weight, and more than at any time, we are making significant progress, bit by bit, to return the land to the dispossessed African masses.
“The PAC’s position on the land question, through the government vehicle, the ministry of land reform and rural development, which is led by Nyhontso, has been forcefully amplified – and its echoes reverberate sharply throughout the length and breadth of the country, particularly in the rural areas where the need for land restitution is great.
“Nyhontso’s focus, without neglecting other areas, is helping rural communities to gain access to all basic facilities and necessary amenities to make life more bearable,” said Seroke
Recently, at the University of Western Cape, Nyhontso addressed an international conference made up of land scholars, land restitution activists, and policymakers.
In his address, headlined “Land, Life, and Society”, Nyhontso talked about how the indigenous m
ancestral land had been dispossessed by colonialists, using force “to violently dispossess the African people of their land”.
“The question of land remains deeply personal, political, and historical.
“We meet today on the land that once belonged to the Khoi and the San, who were dispossessed through colonial conquest.
“We carry the legacy of centuries of forced removals, segregation, and apartheid, where the land was not only an economic asset, but also a tool of exclusion and domination,” Nyhontso said.
Seroke says with this track record attached to the president of the PAC, “the status of PAC as a pariah political party has become a thing of the past”.
Despite the rumblings “in some little quarters”, and attempts to create a parallel structure by some disgruntled factions, the Nyhontso-led PAC is steaming ahead.
“We are confident that the party’s role to play a constructive role in the country’s political landscape, the PAC is headed for a good future, committed to engaging all the country’s communities to try to find a solution that will make South Africa a better place for all its citizens.
“But one has to be glad that the PAC today largely speaks with one voice, and will not be distracted by dissenting lone voices in the wilderness.
“Sobukwe is calling us to the vineyard, to the work he left incomplete, and we are obliged to complete it in his name.
“The PAC embodies the aspirations and wishes of the people. We have no wish to join the gravy train, but rather to enter into a national dialogue, and in turn, serve the people of this country wholeheartedly.
“The PAC is committed to move out of the shadows, and be seen in the national limelight of progress,” ended Seroke.
(The PAC congress will be held at the Nelson Mandela University Hall from 9am.)
- Mdhlela is an independent journalist, a former media trade unionist, a social justice activist, and an Anglican priest
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