Celebrating the Life and Times of Lawrence Phokanoka

It is truly an honour to reflect on theory and praxis in the current conjuncture, especially in this month, exactly 20 years after the passing of Lawrence Madimetja Phokanoka. The links and threads of history, both visible and invisible, that characterise the life of this hero of our struggle are many and varied.

And so, we discover that, like OR Tambo and Duma Nokwe, comrade Phokes had a special disposition and capacity for Mathematics and Natural Sciences; and he was enrolled for a Bachelor of Science Degree in Applied Mathematics and Physics at the University of Fort Hare. Like Tambo and Nokwe, he recognised that the language and logic of Mathematics are incomplete without the mastery of social sciences, honing his skills in transdisciplinarity.

The visible and invisible threads in Phokanoka’s life find expression in mentorship and struggle peerage: academically educated at Kilnerton High School under Sefako Makgatho, a teacher and former President of the ANC; politically trained under the leadership of the likes of OR Tambo, Moses Kotane, Joe Slovo, Florence Mophosho and Yusuf Dadoo; and then all the way to 18 years of tutelage under Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu and other leaders on Robben Island.

With him as Deputy Commissar, members of the Luthuli Detachment such as Chris Hani, Flag Boshielo, James April, Patrick Molaoa, Mavuso Msimang and Basil February made their mark in MK and ZIPRA battles with enemy forces at Wankie and Sipolilo.

It is in recognition of his service to the people of South Africa that his chest was adorned with many awards, including the Party’s highest honour, the Moses Kotane Award and South Africa’s Order of Luthuli.

This appreciation extended beyond the political elite: he was elected top of the list to go to parliament in 1994; but he declined, and later served as community liaison officer in the provincial Department of Safety and Security – where he had to be persuaded to accept his new government salary which he felt was too high.

Many of us still feel a sense of sadness not to have met him after he lost his sight, what is ordinarily a debilitating affliction. Why? Because I’m certain that physical blindness would have sharpened his vision even further. It would have galvanised the width and depth of his already exceptional memory;

and perfected his analytical and communication skills. Lawrence Phokanoka had a penchant for establishing connections among seemingly unconnected phenomena in the social and natural world; understanding life in its multiple dimensions. As many of his peers and associates have observed, he was hard-working, self-effacing, persistent, erudite and a master of polemics.

This made him a political education officer par excellence. To quote former ANC Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe: [Phokanoka] was always eager and ready to explain and simplify concepts … He would explain the laws of motion, which [apply] with equal force both in society as well as in nature.

This law …specifically states that: ‘a thing is, and a thing is not, but always in a state of becoming’ (Motlanthe: 2023)

Let us conduct our conversation with Bra Phokes today guided by this profound observation: ‘a thing is, and a thing is not, but always in a state of becoming’

. This is about the permanence of change:

change that can lead to a new form (or transformation of quantity into quality); to co-existence or

rapture between contending forces (or unity and struggle of opposites), and to movement from low

to higher forms of complexity in a system (or negation of the negation).

This appreciation of permanent dynamism challenges the tendency in our society especially among

so-called analysts and commentators, with dumbing down becoming a badge of honour.

Complexities of social life are simplified to crudity, an insidious scourge in our body politic; which can

be as destructive as the material realities of poverty and inequality.

Before elaborating on the global and domestic conjuncture, let me give a simple illustration.

There is this study called PIRLS – the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study – which in 2021

came up with the shocking result that 81% of our Grade 4 learners are unable to read for meaning.

This then is repeated everywhere as a mantra – you have to regurgitate this if you wish to be

recognised as an expert in education and public policy generally. However, if you dug deeper into

the longitudinal trend: that percentage was higher at 87% in 2006; it then came down to 82% in

2011 and further down to 78% in 2016. (Metelerkamp: 2023)

And so, in South Africa’s famous sport of self-flagellation we miss the mega-trend of gradual

improvement before Covid-19, and thus the possibility of rising from the trough. We ignore the

‘state of becoming’ that Phokanoka taught us about.

Let us now examine that ‘state of becoming’ in relation to the cause of social change. In doing so, we’ll try to use Phokanoka’s methodology, emulate his analysis, and even venture to debate with him in his absence!

Lawrence Phokanoka understood that humans, as social beings, advance their lives by constantly

transforming the natural world through ever-evolving means of production. As humanity advances,

social life and production processes have to be organised and regulated.

In the course of such advancement, specialisation, division of labour and inequitable appropriation

of assets and products of labour takes root. Thus, the observation by David Ricardo (1817): The

produce of the earth – all that is derived from its surface by the united application of labour,

machinery, and capital, is divided among … classes of the community … To determine the laws which

regulate this distribution, is the principal problem in Political Economy…

The classics of social science which inspired Phokanoka teach us that the history of humanity is one

of class struggle around this fundamental question of political economy. The state, ideological

discourse, religious beliefs, education – in other words, the superstructure – are shaped to promote

and defend existing social relations.3

Phokanoka chose to pursue the ideal of freeing humans from toil towards the joy of a comfortable

and fulfilling life. He joined the Communist Party because he sought a global society in which, to

quote Karl Marx (1845), “…nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become

accomplished in any branch [he or she] wishes. This is a society without classes, and even without

the need for an overlord in the form of a state.

Many have characterised Marxism as an ideology of dictatorship. However, Phokes knew that, in

celebrating the Paris Commune, Marx and Engels cited its implementation of elections and popular democracy; the right to recall public representatives; and correlation between the lifestyle of the political leadership and that of the working people. (Marx: 1871)

Whence, then, does the issue of dictatorship of the proletariat arise and why is it associated with a socialist revolution? There are two elements to this. The first one is about managing a transition after such a revolution given the internal and external resistance to popular power, which would be a transitional imperative conditional on the nature of counter-revolution. The second one is about the very notion of dictatorship as conceptualised by Marx, Engels and other social scientists. In all class-divided societies, they argued, the dominant class assumes pre-eminence and it uses ideational capacity and state power to assert its authority. In their conception, this applies to all class-based societies.

Indeed, in analysing the collapse of ‘living socialism’ in Eastern Europe, Joe Slovo in 1990 argued that even in the transition, the great divide which developed between socialism and political democracy should not be treated as flowing naturally from key aspects of socialist doctrine… Marxism clearly projects a system anchored in deep-seated political democracy and the rights of the individual which can only be truly attained when society as a whole assumes control and direction of all its riches and resources. (Slovo: 1990)

But was that experiment itself viable? Francis Fukuyama (1992) in his famous book, The End of

History and the Last Man argued that ‘liberal democracy’ is ‘arguably free from …fundamental

internal contradictions’. (Fukuyama: 1992) While acknowledging ‘injustice’ and ‘serious social

problems’, these ‘were ones of incomplete implementation of the twin principles of liberty and

equality on which modern democracy is founded, rather than of flaws in the principles themselves.’

(Fukuyama: 2014) While today he acknowledges the danger ‘political decay’ in democracies like the

US with corruption and crony capitalism or plutocracy, his argument about ‘liberal democracy’ is not

dissimilar to Slovo’s critique of ‘living socialism’.

Fukuyama made these assertions because capitalism has shown a remarkable capacity for self-

renewal and regeneration. It has led to major advances in science and technology and today, it has

given birth to the so-called 4th industrial revolution including artificial intelligence, combining human

and machine capabilities in a manner that has the potential massively to improve the human

condition (or even the opposite). Artificial Intelligence, to quote Prof Tshilidzi Marwala has become

an integral part of our daily existence, influencing fields as diverse as healthcare, education, finance,

and entertainment….[making] decisions or predictions that affect individuals and communities...with

profound social and ethical implications. (Marwala: 2023)

So, if capitalism has this potential, was Phokanoka wrong in envisioning a more humane society?

What about the advances being attained in China, with its penchant to embrace and domesticate4

the best in scientific advances, to generate new forms of knowledge, and to reduce poverty in a

manner hardly seen in human history – a China emerging once more as a pre-eminent economic

power that it once was some two to three centuries ago?

I think Bra Phokes would have argued that the system of capitalism has now generated fundamental

contradictions which seem to have reached a confluence of irresolution. Liberal democracy is giving

birth to unashamed rule by the rich and openly corrupt. With social inequality worsening, the ruling

class and political elites have defaulted to the politics of narrow identity. At the same time, the

world seems to be galloping towards the so-called Thucydides Trap where a rising power in the form

of China, is seen as an existential threat. In the Middle East, impunity is celebrated as genocide plays

out ever again and unprovoked wars are initiated. Direct and proxy conflicts are being waged in

Eastern Europe, and in Central and Eastern Africa. In the Maghreb and the Sahel, security-centred

approaches to dealing with the scourge of terrorism – at the expense of the social issues that

generate such conflicts – are not producing desired results.

We use the notions of ‘ruling class’ and ‘political elites’ deliberately; for, what is meant to be the left

social democratic movement seems itself to have been co-opted into the broader schema of neo-

liberalism and militarism; and it is experiencing declining electoral fortunes (in countries such as

Germany and France). Even in the UK where the Labour Party is in government, this movement seems to be pathetically adrift, like flotsam in an unforgiving turbulent sea. Desperately trying to stem electoral misfortune, the presumed Left itself resorts to the straws of ‘classless identity politics’, averting the eye from the fundamental question of political economy to which David Ricardo drew attention more than two hundred years ago.

In this regard, Bra Phokes would have reminded us of Lenin’s (1913) assertion: People always have been the foolish victims of deception and self-deception in politics, and they always will be until they have learnt to seek out the interests of some class or other behind all moral, religious, political and social phrases, declarations and promises.

Under these circumstances, who would blame Phokanoka if today he were to argue that, long as it may have taken, capitalism has now truly sown the seeds of its own destruction?

What then about the macrosocial environment in South Africa?

I will select a few themes which lend themselves to Phokanoka’s articulation: ‘a thing is, and a thing is not, but always in a state of becoming’

.

Theme 1 – Acontextual presentism: The tendency has taken root in much of popular discourse that, because we face many challenges today as a nation, nothing has changed since 1994. It is not the purpose of our discussion today to list the many advances that have been made since the attainment of democracy, across all generations of human rights as enshrined the country’s Constitution. Many things could have been done better and faster; but to discount these advances is to question the very utility of liberation. The speed, the extent and the depth of a Freedom Charter in a state of becoming, need to be improved. But, as we celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Congress of the People and the injunction that ‘the people shall govern’ (Freedom Charter: 1955), we can say with confidence that the attainment of democracy in South Africa was not fleeting mirage.

Acontextual presentism becomes even more perplexing when those in state institutions revel in explaining how terrible things are; rather than focusing on explaining what concrete interventions would be effected to improve the situation.

Theme 2 – Two Economies of the colony and the metropolis: The South African colonial economy was founded on expropriation of black people’s assets, limitations on black and women’s entrepreneurship and skills, cheap labour and provision of privileges to the white minority. Data point to some post-colonial progress in black skills acquisition, representation in management and Boards of established companies, and asset ownership. In some respects, such as skilled occupations and demographics of university enrolment (including gender), the progress is worth celebrating. Yet, in others, such as asset ownership, including land redistribution, performance has been woeful.

The advanced section of the South African economy is chugging along, though at low rates of growth, absorbing a section of the black community. Yet most black people remain excluded – and we are sometimes criticised for seeking to create employment opportunities for workers we wish we have, not the actual unemployed who are either unskilled or semi-skilled. We need to deal with inclusion critically from the point of view of the colony which, in the negation of the negation, remains largely far from a post-colonial state of becoming.

What interventions are required in this regard? Firstly, the National Development Plan asserts, based on comprehensive research, that in agriculture alone, we can create some 1-million jobs in ten to fifteen years if certain targeted interventions are made. Secondly, low-end manufacturing, including through Special Economic Zones and Industrial Parks (appropriately configured and better than what we currently have with the Musina-Makhado initiative) – premised on diverse trade especially with Africa – can absorb many unskilled and semi-skilled workers. Thirdly, directed and comprehensive focus on micro- and informal enterprises would dramatically change the way in which the marginalised pursue economic opportunities. The current debate about the size of the informal sector is interesting but largely irrelevant: the fact is that we can do more.

Theme 3 – Measures to deal with inequality: Before elaborating on these issues, let’s just underline

that inequality between races is declining, while inequality within the black community is increasing.

Why does inequality matter, you may ask? In their book, The Spirit Level, Wilkinson and Pickett

(2010) show that violence, prison population, drug use, mental illness, life expectancy, educational

advancement, and teenage births, are much worse in societies that have high levels of income

inequality – even when these societies are ranked at the same level of development. The

marginalised sediment of society feels it has nothing to lose; and in politics, it is mobilised on the

basis of ethnicity and targeting of migrants, and even to generate social instability, as we

experienced in July 2021.

To deal with this challenge, the measures required include: economic growth and access to

opportunities; education and skills development; employee and community share-ownership

schemes; income policy that includes both a minimum wage and reduced income differentials within

enterprises. There are the less obvious ones such as the impact of food inflation and prices of

utilities such as water and electricity on the poor, on which they spend the bulk of their incomes.

Added to this is the hidden apartheid tax on the poor in terms of transport costs, due to the6

apartheid spatial settlement patters, that our housing policies have tended to entrench. The state of

becoming on spatial issues is one of the areas on which we have perhaps made the least progress.

Theme 4 – Black capitalists and construction of a national democratic society: (On this one I am not sure Bra Phokes who was uncomfortable with a mid-level civil service salary because he felt it was too high, would agree). So, let’s debate the issue! The Freedom Charter says: All people shall have equal rights to trade where they choose, to manufacture and to enter all trades, crafts and professions. Jack Simons used to make the point to us in the MK camps that, in the cut-throat dynamics of any capitalist system, when people have rights to trade, manufacture and so on, some will succeed, and others will fail. And so, you will end up with small and large enterprises even among the new entrants.

Now, the corollary of promoting equality of access to opportunity is that the democratic state has to encourage the emergence of a cohort of black capitalists (a ‘black capitalist class’, so to speak). Yes, Broad-based Black Economic Empowerment must include skills training, positions in management and Boards, as well as employee and community share-ownership. But you cannot talk about a racially equitable capitalist system without a ‘black capitalist class’. This element of levelling up is a necessity. The problem is when this form of empowerment is projected as the totality of transformation, and when the beneficiaries do not themselves pursue broad-based empowerment.

It is when those who access these opportunities do so only to acquire wealth and status, avoid the coalface of financial, trade and industrial activity, and end up cashing out their shares in order to pursue sedentary lifestyles in Dubai or the French Riviera.

Theme 4 – Race, national unity and social cohesion: The debate about the extent to which South African society has advanced towards national unity and social cohesion will fester for many years to come. What we have as a nation is a classic example of: a thing is, and a thing is not, but always in a state of becoming. The flag, the national anthem, celebration of sporting pursuits and interactions among the multi-racial elites (mainly as cultural co-option of the black middle and upper strata) are somewhat important as indicators of positive sentiment. But they will be fleeting and inconsequential if the fundamental questions of social equity are not addressed.

Quite clearly, the quarrels around issues of race derive, essentially, from material self-interest. The political compact of the early 1990s sought to encourage patience on the part of the marginalised for an orderly process of social transformation; and a commitment on the part of the privileged to contribute to healing ‘the divisions of the past’ and the establishment of ‘a society based on… social justice… (RSA Constitution: 1996) But, the ‘guts to fight back’ belligerence of what is today the Democratic Alliance (DA: 1999) sought to undermine that compact; and it continues today in challenges to transformative statutes and practices. It continues in the racist and right-wing alliances that are being forged across borders, especially with the rise of such parties in many developed countries of the North.

Theme 5 – The national question and narrow ethnic identity: Beyond matters of race, it is deeply

concerning that the mobilisation of communities among Black people on the basis of ethnic and

language identities seems to be finding fertile ground. This was much in evidence in the outcome of

the 2024 elections with overt and covert dog-whistles among Africans in KwaZulu-Natal, Gauteng

and Mpumalanga; and broadly in relation to the Coloured community in some of the provinces.7

How is it possible thirty years into democracy, for this kind of mobilisation to find fertile ground?

Maybe it’s personality cults and loyalties, or opportunistic mobilisation; but the fact of the matter is

that opportunism only thrives where there is opportunity. The state of becoming of the South

African nation – at whose foundation should be the unity of the African people as enjoined more

than a century ago when the ANC was formed – evinces two contradictory tendencies today. On the

one hand, and quite correctly, we have urged the erstwhile oppressed to take pride in their

languages, culture and traditions. On the other, we seek, again quite correctly, to promote the

overarching identity of being South African. The multi-ethnic Limpopo Province – particularly

localities such as Thulamela and Vuwani and Malamulele – has been trying to manage these

seemingly contradictory impulses. The fundamental question is whether in the dialectical negation

of the negation South Africa will move towards synthesis or degenerate toward ‘the demon’

‘the

,

aberrations’ and ‘the animosity’ that Pixley ka Isaka Seme warned against. (Seme: 1911)

Theme 6 – State legitimacy and authority: For the state of becoming to reflect the continuing march towards the ideals of the Constitution, requires a state that is capable, ethical and developmental. It should exercise authority as the ultimate bearer of arms and as the enforcer of law and order. Of course, such authority can only be sustained if it derives from popular legitimacy – when the state is seen to pursue the popular interest. Democracy is the starting point in according such legitimacy;

but it must be undergirded by the progressive pursuit of all other generations of rights enshrined in the Constitution: economic, social, gender, informational and otherwise. Critical in the state’s right to use force is the integrity and legitimacy of state security institutions.

But this is not easily attained, even in the most advanced democracies, because the warning that ‘power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely’ (Dalberg-Acton: 1887), is even more relevant in the security sector.

We have recently had strange incidents, with machinations within the South African Police Service, in particular, where the hunters become the hunted and the other way round, in a dizzying display of smoke and mirrors. We need to be vigilant as citizens because, as others have warned, we may find ourselves hoodwinked to use democracy to destroy democracy.

Theme 7 – Organisational renewal of the ANC: There are many proposals that have been made about how to renew the ANC in terms of its focus on improving the human condition, especially among the poor. The Constitution guides us about the ideals that we should pursue – and as Phokanoka would say, there can be no revolution without a revolutionary organisation. This relates to the functionality of branches, the organic links between members and communities, and the quality of leaders, cadres and members at large.

Thus, the campaign around political education and initiation of the Foundational Course are to be commended. Tens of thousands of members have gone through the modules. While there may be criticisms that the numbers in each branch still reflect a small cohort of members; that there may have been tick-box exercises in some branches; and that undergoing political instruction may not necessarily change ingrained individual faults – the fact of the matter is that the movement has embarked on one of its largest political education campaigns; and we need to build on this. The proposal that members who have not gone through the course should be barred from assuming leadership positions and from being selected as delegates to conferences at all levels, needs to be seriously considered. This would act as an important incentive.8

Theme 8 – Leadership selection and challenge of ‘ultra-democracy’: Over the years, the ANC has grappled with systems of developing, career-pathing and promoting its cadres to positions of responsibility. In the recent period, we have introduced criteria for accession to these positions, including political acumen, ethical conduct and academic qualifications. The Electoral Committee has been refining these processes; but still the eye of the needle is not narrow enough to prevent miscreants from squeezing through. Ultra-democracy lends itself to the utilisation of all manner of machinations, including money, to ascend to positions of leadership. There is much that we can learn from many Social Democratic Parties and former liberation movements such as Chama Cha Mapinduzi in Tanzania and FRELIMO in Mozambique, particularly on the management of succession.

There are many missteps that can further erode popular confidence in the ANC and drag it even lower in terms of electoral support. Let me be bold to assert that, besides management of governance and socio-economic performance, the succession battles in the build-up to the 2027 National Conference will determine whether the ANC survives as the leader of the cause of transformation. The generation of the 2008 Youth League Congress is now in charge across the organisation; and we know that in internal electoral contestation, they take no prisoners, and even forget to bring their belts to conference sessions. Let this not be the culture going forward.

Theme 9 – The Tri-partite Alliance and the conduct of revolution: It is instructive that Lawrence Phokanoka joined the Communist Party in 1959 and the ANC later in 1960 – a sequence that is not common among many cadres. He could have just stayed in the Party. But that generation of Party cadres fully understood that a ‘good communist’ should excel in mass movements, with the ANC being the pre-eminent mass organisation of liberation. They appreciated that the pursuit of a socialist society, should traverse the path of national liberation, a National Democratic Revolution, whose content and form they should influence. They patiently and in a disciplined manner strove to deepen the class content of the liberation struggle, and accepted that the ANC’s own creed would inject a necessary national content into the Party’s ideological posture, in bidirectional osmosis.

The Tri-partite Alliance – today constituted by ANC, the SACP and COSATU – and the broader

configuration that includes SANCO, proceeds form a common analysis of the current character of

struggle. Differences on matters of detail, including decision-making structures and deployment into

institutions of governance, cannot override this fundamental perspective.

Many of us therefore argue that the SACP’s entry into electoral politics as a separate entity threatens

to weaken both the ANC and the SACP and, by extension, COSATU and SANCO. We can refer to the

experience of the recent Polokwane Ward 13 by-election and even Metsimaholo as examples of this

– though it would wrong to generalise. What is clear, though, is that this stance of the Party is bound

to divide the motive forces of change and confuse the electorate. Organisationally, it can spawn a

nasty and debilitating anti-communist witch-hunt in the ANC and further set progressive unionists

against each other. This, at a time when the revolution is facing the most acute domestic threats; and

when global extreme right-wing forces are targeting our country’s transformation agenda, spewing

white racist and revanchist rhetoric.

On this score, I would not like to venture a view on what the Phokanoka methodology would have

advanced as a way forward. Save to say that, all of us do hope that the engagements among the

leadership of the Tripartite Alliance will find a solution to the challenge. Some hope that the

resolution of the Party’s Linda Jabane District Congress which seeks creatively to interpret the9

National Congress resolution may signal a way out of the looming crisis. According to District

Secretary Afrika Masoa, they are calling for electoral co-operation with the ANC while engaging all…

alliance partners, progressive forces, and working-class [in] defending and reconfiguring the alliance

and advancing the National Democratic Revolution (Jabane: 2025).

Hopefully, something good and better – a synthesis – will yet come out of what are otherwise

secondary contradictions.

Let us emphasise, in conclusion, that social transformation will remain necessary even if the ANC’s

electoral fortunes change; whether there are coalitions or not. What is fundamental in this fluid

environment is for the movement to master all terrains of struggle, including, critically, mass

mobilisation, the courts, the ‘think industry’ and platforms of the commentariat, in intensifying the

struggle to attain all the ideals enshrined in the Constitution.

This then is how I thought we should celebrate the life of Lawrence Madimetja Phokanoka, by using

his methodology to contribute to what should be a continuous festival of ideas.

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