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As a proponent and disciple of the American rhetorician Kenneth Burke, I invite readers – as we prepare to heed the ANC’s 114th 8 January Statement – to pause and consider what lies beneath this annual commemorative ritual. In Burkean terms, to pause in this way is to attend to motive(s), to ask not only what is being said, but also why it is being said.

To uncover the motive, I urge us to ask a deceptively simple, perhaps even ‘stupid’ question: what do we mean when we say that the ANC’s National Executive Committee or its President delivers an 8 January Statement, and why is it delivered?

I can already imagine someone responding: Duh! With the statement, we mean the commemoration of the ANC’s founding; it updates the party’s audiences on progress made; and it outlines the programme of action for the year ahead. Indeed, this understanding is not wrong. The ANC itself has consistently framed the 8 January Statement as a founding celebration and a platform through which its audiences are briefed on priorities for the year.

But allow me – for a moment >– to put on my rhetorical criticism spectacles and invite you to look more closely with me at what is really involved when the 8 January Statement is delivered, and why it is delivered in precisely the way that it is.

Seeing with Rhetoric Spectacles

Notice: to wear rhetoric spectacles is to begin recognising the 8 January Statement as rhetoric, and those who craft (the NEC) and deliver it (the ANC President) as rhetors. By rhetoric I mean the human communication activity of constructing messages using what is best available to persuade others to see the world or something in a particular way.

Equally, wearing rhetoric spectacles means seeing language not merely as a medium of communication, but as the rhetor’s action itself. When the rhetor recounts achievements, acknowledges failures, or outlines plans using carefully selected words (terministic screening), he is not merely updating the public. Instead, he is inviting audiences to interpret political reality in a particular way, that is to say – his way!

Furthermore, putting on rhetoric spectacles means viewing political communication such as the 8 January Statement as a rhetorical activity aimed at creating identification between speaker and audience. In Burke’s terms, persuasion cannot occur where identification is absent. Wearing these spectacles also means seeing the statements as advancing particular motives and, at times, managing or purging guilt. Seen this way, the 8 January Statement is not merely a commemorative ritual, but a strategic action to sell a particular worldview. One that, if accepted, responds to the pressures, crises, and demands of the moment in ways desired by the rhetor.

Stay with me. Next, I am spilling tea on the rhetoric of four 8 January Statements delivered during apartheid (1972, 1985, 1990, and 1993) and four delivered during democracy (1995, 2002, 2016, and 2024).

8 January Statement During Apartheid

In 1972, the 8 January Statement presented a troubling picture of a liberation struggle losing momentum. Oliver Tambo lamented six decades of unfulfilled freedom since the ANC’s founding in 1912. In so doing, the rhetor(s) simultaneously reignited urgency and confronted collective guilt or shame. The statement not only mobilised resistance against apartheid, but also subtly purged this guilt by recommitting the movement to revolutionary action.

By 1985, the stressed context had shifted. The statement celebrated the growing strength and coordination of anti-apartheid forces, turning the commemoration into both praise for the masses and an exhibition of political power to the apartheid regime. It sought to reassure supporters that the struggle was advancing and that apartheid was increasingly untenable.

In 1990, amid negotiations and escalating violence, the ANC used the 8 January Statement to map a volatile transition. Here, South Africa was framed at a crossroads, with the ANC positioned as the legitimate political guide. Unity, non-racialism, and negotiation were elevated as the only credible pathway, reinforcing the party’s ideological position and personal imaging.

By 1993, on the eve of the first democratic elections, urgency became central. Despite continued violence, elections were framed as inevitable, signalling the ANC’s confidence in its identification with the majority. The 8 January Statement had become a platform for converting moral legitimacy into electoral readiness amid atrocities such as black-on-black violence.

8 January Statement During Democracy

The 1995 statement, which came immediately after the first democratic elections, framed the new democracy not as a finished achievement but as a continuing struggle. The ANC used the speech to situate its cadres within a new democratic-oriented political identity, emphasising service and devotion to the people amid the lingering legacy of apartheid.

Similarly, the 2002 statement highlighted post-apartheid’s enduring inequalities and neo-colonial pressures, inducing action for the African Renaissance. Here, the rhetor framed democracy as a continuing extension of the liberation struggle while reinforcing identification between the ANC and its heterogeneous audiences.

By 2016, the speech reflected the deepening socio-economic and political crises. The ANC’s rhetoric here aimed to rebuild legitimacy in the face of protests, student movements, and corruption scandals, signalling a shift from celebratory reflection to crisis management.

In 2024, on the eve of national elections, the statement prioritised depicting South Africa’s elderly guardian (ANC) as wrongly under political siege, framing the situation this way to defend the ANC’s ruling party status by downplaying opposition ambitions (Moonshot Pact) to unplug the party from power.  

A Rhetoric Homework

My analysis of the 8 January Statement above shows that this has never been a neutral celebration. It is a rhetorically powerful act that shifts across moments in history: inciting struggle and admitting shame in 1972, coordinating mass action and displaying political power in 1985, constructing and deepening political identity in 1990, advancing ideological positions on pressing issues in 1993, framing democracy, reconstructing party identity, and nurturing identification with heterogeneous audiences, including pursuing continental ambitions such as the African Renaissance (1995 and 2002), recovering audience identification in 2016, and defending the ANC’s ruling-party status in 2024.

Today, as the ANC struggles to recover its ‘glorious’ political identity – at a time when national confidence has waned and local elections are looming, and as South Africa grapples with Trump’s stances – the ritual of 8 January demands critical attention.

As such, my homework to you is that, as you listen to this year’s statement, move beyond how eloquent Ramaphosa sounds. Keep the question in mind: what political moment is being privileged in the 2026 8 January Statement and why?

This matters, because whoever succeeds in defining the moment also shapes how reality is perceived, and in doing so, advances the desires they hope audiences will accept and live by.