Resumo

MARITZ, Paul J.  e  SCHLEBUSCH, Jan Adriaan. Equality as revolutionary concept with the ANC and Groen van Prinsterer: A timely warning for today?. Koers (Online) [online]. 2025, vol.90, n.1, pp.1-15. ISSN 2304-8557.  https://doi.org/10.19108/koers.90.1.2604.

Since its inception, the concept of equality has been a central tenet in the ideological framework of the ANC. This pursuit of equality is evident in various key documents throughout the party's history, but the question of how the ANC understands equality on a theoretical level, and how the party implements it in practice, remains complex and insufficiently researched. An examination of these sources indicates that the party does not merely understand equality in the classical sense of equality before the law, but rather as a revolutionary form of equality pertaining to the socio-economic sphere. The ANC's conceptualisation of equality must be situated within a broader historical debate about the nature of equality, which originated during the Enlightenment. This revolutionary notion, rooted in the thought of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Karl Marx, has most notably been critiqued by the Dutch statesman Guillaume Groen van Prinsterer. He warned that this form of equality could undermine social bonds, damage societal cohesion, and violate property rights. His critique underscores the importance of rejecting an ideological framework that has historically proven counterproductive to societal development, in order to safeguard civil liberties and ensure socio-economic progress - also within South Africa's contemporary political context.

Palavras-chave : ANC; equality; Guillaume Groen van Prinsterer; National Democratic Revolution.

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