As the ANC's broad church continues breaking up, and the party is increasingly defined by an elite group of corrupt power brokers, many traditional ANC supporters (particularly those who might be considered part of the "intelligentsia") face an identity crisis: they cannot identify with what the ANC has become, but they just cannot make a clean break either.

They are nostalgic for "the moral high ground" -- a place the ANC once claimed exclusively as its own. And so they look for ways to regain that comfort, without breaking ties with the ANC.

They believe that the ANC can be rescued from itself; they blame individuals in government for the ANC's failures but remain "loyal cadres" of the movement. They seek refuge in other disillusioned activists and form various "social movements" in which they seek to recapture the social activism and mass politics of the UDF. They criticise the government (most emphatically when it is a DA government). But at heart they remain loyal to what they believe the ANC once was and what, they trust, it can still become -- if only the right "cadres" could be deployed in key positions.

I know how this feels because I was once caught in this identity crisis myself. I have long since given up the illusion that the ANC can be rescued from itself. The ANC's dominant ideology of racial nationalism and political patronage is now so entrenched that it cannot be reversed by well-meaning individuals trying to resurrect the values of Nelson Mandela.

These thoughts struck me as I read the reaction to my criticism of the ANC's policy of "cadre deployment" to various institutions intended to be independent of the ruling party. Among various "deployed cadres" I mentioned was Janet Love. The ANC General Secretary recently announced that Ms Love had resigned from the ANC's National Executive Committee because she was being "deployed" to the Human Rights Commission, which he described as a "strategic" institution.

A group of lawyers, activists and academics sprang to Ms Love's defence, rejecting my critique on the grounds that Ms Love is a person of intelligence and integrity who had shown through her work in the Legal Resources Centre that she was prepared to challenge the ANC.

This letter was widely circulated and was carried by the Mail & Guardian, as was a separate article devoted to its contents. The underlying message was clear: if "good cadres" are deployed to strategic institutions, then "cadre deployment" is okay. "Good cadres" should be above criticism. Nobody criticised my comments about former ANC MP and current Chairperson Lawrence Mushwana, for example, because they don't consider him a "good cadre."

This logical contradiction typifies the "identity crisis" I have described. It was spotted by Anton Fagan, a law Professor at the University of Cape Town, who penned a rebuttal, which spread rapidly through various legal circles and eventually found its way to me through a lawyer in private practice. It was also sent to the Mail & Guardian. Instead of covering its key arguments, the Mail & Guardian, managed to bury them in the peripheral debate about whether a deployed cadre could be independent or not.

So in the interests of ensuring that all sides of this crucial debate are heard, I am pasting Prof Fagan's letter below. In it, he responds to his academic colleagues' defence of Ms Love's deployment to the HRC. I believe Prof Fagan's argument is irrefutable. In ten years time, it will be regarded as conventional wisdom.

Helen Zille