The African National Congress (ANC) lays claim to being the oldest living nationalist movement in Africa. Purportedly, nationalist organisations represent the interests of a putative or extant ‘nation’ against those of an oppressive external power or coloniser. When their struggles triumph, they lay claim to ownership of the previously externally dominated state, national oppression is overthrown, and the nationalist movement moves into power as the representative of the people. However, as has been wryly observed time after time, the triumph of nationalism exacerbates rather than eliminates differences the nationalist struggle had contained. Once they have assumed power, nationalist movements may claim to represent and promote the interests of the entire nation, yet regularly they have become the vehicles of particular ethnic, class, religious and/or regional interests. The category of ‘nation’ effectively dissolves, except in so far as the now-ruling party defines who and who does not belong to it.

Likewise, the sectional interests of those who control the ruling party become unambiguously identified with the ‘national interest.’ Across wide swathes of Africa the post-colonial state has come to be identified as effectively owned and controlled by a post-colonial elite which, while it may have all sort of ethnic and other properties, is, above all, defined by its use of the state machinery for purposes of material accumulation. Having taken control of the instruments of power, the nationalist movement establishes the ‘party-state’ and becomes a ‘political machine’ central to the allocation of political and economic goods and consolidation of power and well-being of the new elite.

According to its theology of the National Democratic Revolution (NDR), the ANC is uncomfortably aware of the dangers of South Africa following this trajectory. The principal dynamic of the NDR is said to be the liberation of Africans in particular and blacks in general from political and socio-economic bondage. The ‘motive forces’ of the revolution are recognised as workers and the rural poor, who constitute the large majority of the popular movement, alongside middle strata (including small business operators and real and aspirant capitalists), which, historically, were blocked from growth and development by the racial exclusions of segregation and apartheid.

As part of the motive forces, the black middle strata constitute a critical resource, providing not only professional skills but fostering value systems appropriate to the building of democracy and development.