GARETH VAN ONSELEN: The clandestine, apartheid state of the ANC
"It is our responsibility to cleanse the ANC," ANC Youth League president Collen Maine said in December. The party’s biggest contemporary problem, according to Maine: "The department called Treasury." This weekend he elaborated on that sentiment, calling Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan an "impimpi" working for white monopoly capital. "You know previously we use to call people izimpimpi, and now we want to sugar coat it. Certain things were done to izimpimpi in the past, before 1994," said Maine. Finally, and ominously, he concluded that, "something must be done to this comrade". "Impimpi" — spy, snitch, informer and traitor — all its connotations are intricately associated with those inside the struggle movement who informed on behalf of the apartheid regime. That is the context. So it is a double insult: not just a spy, but in league with the (white) forces of repression. The ANC is a paranoid organisation. Its history of underground resistance and the historical threat of internal...
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