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Politicians and political parties have always been at the forefront in appropriating policies, ideas, symbols and even songs from others in order to promote themselves.
It happens, especially when there has been a split in a political organisation, with both sides claiming to represent the true values of a divided party.
There was a classic example in 2008, when the Congress of the People (Cope) broke away from the ANC.
The ANC claimed that the name of Cope effectively stole “the political heritage” of the ANC.
There were demands that “all promotional material bearing Cope’s name be delivered to the ANC for destruction”.
The Electoral Commission of SA and the high court became involved before the matter was settled and Cope continued on its way.
Over the years, there have been accusations from both the ANC and the opposition DA that one has stolen policies from the other.
Even the introduction of free Wi-Fi in the Nelson Mandela Bay metro fell into this category.
But businesses and trade unions often jealously guard what they consider to be their generally popular brand, colours or symbols.
The Federation of Unions of SA, for example, took issue when the major breakaway from labour federation Cosatu named itself the SA Federation of Trade Unions.
Then, of course, there is the current and ongoing row about whether the ANC appropriated from the Economic Freedom Fighters the facile demand to expropriate land without compensation.
In the process, slogans have become the main currency of politicians, while various academics have tried to point out that the entire issue is adequately covered by the Bill of Rights.
But perhaps the greatest example of political appropriation comes in relation to the labour hymn, The Internationale.
Written to celebrate the short-lived Paris Commune that was founded today, March 18, in 1871 as the first attempt by wage workers to take full, democratic, control of their lives. This bold experiment was certainly not without its flaws.
For example, women played major roles in the creation, maintenance and defence of the commune, but did not have the vote.
However, elected representatives to the governing council were both answerable to, and recallable by, the voters.
Wages were equalised, the death penalty was abolished and the separation of church and state became a reality.
But, after just 71 days, the French army, returning aristocrats and upper class men and women wreaked an often ghastly vengeance on the communards after the barricades fell and a democratic experiment died.
In one week, between May 21 and 28, an estimated 20 000 defenders were killed.
One who survived was transport worker and poet Eugene Pottier, who wrote his ballad of resistance and call to action while hiding in a cellar.
The first lines of the English translation of The Internationale are: Arise you starvelings from your slumber/ Arise you prisoners of want.
It was 17 years before a radical Belgian composer, Pierre De Geyter, put the words to music.
By the end of the 19th century, The Internationale had been adopted by trade unions and the broad spectrum of the political Left.
It has been translated into more than 40 languages, from Albanian to Zulu, and has survived its association with that grotesque parody of socialism that existed in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.
Perhaps ironically, it is still sung at conferences of members of the Socialist International, a global grouping of 153 political parties that includes the ANC and the British Labour Party.
This song, and the event it marks, should today, 147 years later, be celebrated by every democratic worker everywhere.
