ALL IS NOT MILK & HONEY IN THE ANC's HIVE

The launch of the ANC's election platform last weekend, underscored by the conspicuous absence of thousands of people, was a humdrum event. More than two decades ago, I would have unquestionably attended an election platform launch, ready and willing to sing songs of liberation, interspersed with enthusiastic shouts of 'Amandla'. Today I feel a sense of loss - something that was important in one's life is gone. The loss of a noble and principled political movement that transformed into predatory corrupt self-interest to enrich the few at the expense of the many. The ANC's political structure is embedded in group collectivism. Individuality is an anathema to the functioning of the collective. The collective comprises a hive-minded group mentality with a loss of individual identity. Watch a group of bees as they coalesce to move as a committed unit to prevent splitting up the hive and losing the queen. Is it any different from the ANC executive coalescing around Zuma in their bee-striped shirts? History has shown time and again that individuality triumphs, despite efforts to suppress it. So it will be with the ANC where fissures of resistance to unconditional collectivism are now evident due to emerging political awareness. Adding to the awareness is the realization by rank and file members that the party is no longer the party of Mandela - instead a corrupt, inept organization incapable of contributing to a better future for the country. In time, the ANC will implode due to its anachronistic communist command ideology. In its place a new political party will rise up embedded in the principles of good governance and free market policies. Alexander Pope's idiom was never more relevant: "hope springs eternal in the human breast".