Liberalism vs. Marxism-Leninism and the Future of Education in South Africa

Abstract

This paper debates the ideological tension in South Africa between, one the one hand, liberalism, and, on the one hand both the radical Africanist Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) of the 1970s, and the hard-line Marxism-Leninism inclined South African Communist Party (SACP) and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU). The paper’s central argument is, on the one hand, that the BCM’s criticisms of liberalism were specific to South Africa’s white liberals and to specific historical moment on the 1970s. On the other hand the SACP and COSATU’s hard-line Marxism-Leninism is pitted against the African National Congress’s (ANC), which is more community oriented and less attuned to the aspirations of organised labour like its partners. And given that the ANC is in the majority and has more or less hegemonised the alliance the threat to liberalism posed by both the radical Africanist BCM and the hard-line Marxism-Leninism of both the SACP and COSATU has been nullified. It can therefore be reasonably argued that South Africa’s project of a liberal conception of education will be sustained in compliance with the country’s liberal and egalitarian Constitution.

DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2013.v4n3p67