The centenary of the African National Congress (ANC) presents a unique opportunity to interrogate the ideals that spawned and sustained a movement that has assumed the status of a towering giant in the consciousness of South African society and humanists further afield. Whilst our reflections are about history, the subliminal question exercising our minds is whether there should be, and indeed whether there will be, another hundred years. Are South Africans able, in the words of Nicaraguan psychologist Martha Cabrera, to transcend the ‘excess suffering’ and ‘find new energy’?

Historians are better able to organise and articulate the detailed facts about the evolution of the movement and their significance. Out of such disciplined scholarship we will be able to understand the ANC's historical narrative and how it is intertwined with the evolution of South African society. However, in the discourse on the centenary, we should be inspired by more than just inquisitiveness about the mysteries of the past. Though that in itself is a noble undertaking, this exercise should help us draw lessons that will help South African democrats find new energy.

This address tries to examine some of the current challenges facing the ANC against the backdrop of relevant developments in its evolution. The fact that the ANC is able to reach the one hundred-year milestone with its organisational integrity intact – a feat that few political organisations have attained – is deserving of serious intellectual reflection. The central argument in this brief treatise is that survival and success are the product of a continuing search for identity and thus a healthy uncertainty. A few themes in current debates which intersect with the ANC historical narrative have been selected here. The choice of these themes is subjective and has been inspired by the following question: how, in its theory and praxis, should the ANC define its identity and project itself into the future?