Beware stumbling blocks

The people shall govern - a man confronts Zuma in Bakerton

"If you are a stumbling block, we are going to kick you away"

Mhambi is perplexed. In vain I have waited for the media to cover this warning on their front pages. And nobody connected it to the Sunday Times research findings that claimed that nationalism is driving xenophobia.

We had one or two analytical pieces, but nothing matching its potential import.

Is this stark warning to the leader of a governing African party and the rapturous applause in which it was received, not totally novel on this continent?

As Mhambi reported at length in the post, Rainbow racists are Nationalistic on Sunday, what happened in Bakerton, Springs might possibly be the most striking example of an attitude that could change South Africa for the good.

Thabo Mbeki is a disgrace
How strange to see Mbeki visibly upset and outraged at the violence in the country.

What about your own citizens Mr. Mbeki? And how about the Zimbabweans in Zimbabwe? Or the Burmese? I don't understand you Mr. President.

Ah, I get it. The killing of other Africans by South Africans in South Africa have violated your Pan Africanist ideologies. Shame.

Mr. President you are a disgrace, it is all your fault.

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A new dawn in Zimbabwe?

By the time you read this Robert Mugabe may have stepped down. We already know that Zany PF, the party that ruled Zimbabwe with Stalinist intent no longer has the majority in parliament.


President Robert Mugabe and first lady Grace during the run up to the March 29, 2008 national elections in Zimbabwe.
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos.

Mhambi has just been listening to an interview by John Simpson with a senior member of Zanu PF. His analysis was simple. Mugabe had made a strategic mistake by not claiming victory earlier.

It was a moment of weakness. A moment in which doubt settled in the minds of state aparatchiks. And so Mugabe fell fowl of the golden rule of African politics - be ruthless.

Now suddenly these erstwhile sycophantic bureaucrats are falling over themselves trying to demonstrate how even handed and fair they are. Not a little reminiscent of recent events in the post Polokwane South African parliament.

The best Mugabe can hold out for now is a run off AND an intervention by the military. Because in a a run off he is even more likely to loose.

Presidents Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe and Thabo Mbeki of South Africa.
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos.

In March 2007 I opined in an article titled In Cosatu the ANC sees a potential MDC:

'Allot of people are often depressed by events in Zimbabwe, but Mhambi sees reasons for optimism. A largely non-tribal city based middleclass is revolting against the party and leader of liberation. This is largely because Zimbabwe has (or had) substantial industry and therefore a middelclass and organised labour.'

Recent events in both South Africa and Zimbabwe had me beginning to loose faith. But some commentators like Steven Friedman kept banging the drum - the struggle in Zim, Kenya and Polokwane are the birth pangs of genuine democracy in Africa he said. Not many were listening.

'The pattern is clear. The “right” of African presidents to rule for as long as they like, regardless of what their people may think, is under threat.'

If indeed this is the end of Mugabe it is very good news for Africa and South Africa. Already investors are looking to move back into the stricken economy. Consensus is that their economy can be rehabilitated fast.

Many Zimbabweans will be overjoyed at the opportunity to move back over the border from an increasingly xenophobic South Africa. Many South Africans will be glad that they won't have to compete with Zimbabweans over jobs.

But its in the realm of ideas that a huge shift is occurring. An MDC government's foreign policy is likely to put South Africa's foreign policies in an even more unflattering light.

Internally its likely to seek racial reconciliation and economic harmony before the ideology of racial exclusivity at the cost of the economy.

Beware ANC.

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What should South Africa's intellectuals do?

Xolela Mangcu today writes about the role of intellectuals in current South Africa. To him, they have three choices, emigration, loyalty to the party and making themselves heard.

Now let me get back to the relationship between the intellectual on the one hand, and the party and the nation on the other. While it is relatively easy for intellectuals to opt out of party belonging, it is virtually impossible for intellectuals to define themselves out of the nation — unless they do one of three things.

ALBERT Hirschman described these three things as exit, loyalty and voice. The intellectual can divest himself or herself of national belonging through exit, which is often through emigration.

However, there are those intellectuals who remain behind but express their national loyalty through what Thandika Mkandawire calls “incantation of the thought of the leader”. And then there are those who also remain behind but do not belong to the party. They do not belong to the party because their insistence on critical autonomy soon runs up against the protocols and strictures of the party.

For example, it strikes me that the bankruptcy of the political party as an instrument of democracy and nation building has never been more exposed than it is in our country right now.

Wheres the good people?
To Xolela the choice is stark, and would require more good people to speak up.

An idea that has received little attention is the role of prominent personalities or civic notables from the progressive movement itself in speaking up for the values of the constitution. In short, a rebellion against the thuggery that often comes shrouded in the name of party and nation.

That would require good men and women to speak out more often than they have done over the past decade. The alternative is certain ruination.

In the last few days some have already spoken out. Lets hope this number grows.

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The Afro-pessimists are restless

The Mail and Guardian blog sections have published two interesting posts yesterday. In one Percy Zvomuya pessimistically asks, in reaction to events in Kenya What is wrong with Africa?.

He should have been more careful because in another post, The new is not yet born: The battle for African democracy, Stephen Friedman calls these "Afro-pessimists — a long, fancy word for people who don’t believe black people in Africa can run anything." But concedes that they have no shortage of ammunition right now.

In the first comment underneath Steven post Ivo Vegter retorts: "The real problem is that in all the racist analysis, everyone gets cast as either an Afro-pessimist or an Afro-optimist. Critics and racists alike go into the first category, and those who vote their racial loyalty or guilty conscience go in the latter. Oddly enough, this feeds off the notion that Africans are somehow different, that the question of whether Africans are capable of self-government is still unanswered. Of course Africans are capable of self-government. Why wouldn’t they be?"

Ivo wants us to argue about the policies of these governments and put the lables behind us.

For a long time Mhambi has agreed with Steven's central contention however. What has transpired in Zimbabwe and in the ANC were signs of democracy. He states this case better:
"In Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe’s government ruled largely unchallenged until 2000, when it lost a constitutional referendum, a thinly disguised signal that the people wanted it gone. This forced it into a lengthy attempt to stay in power despite the people’s judgement. Since then, politics in Zimbabwe has been about the elite’s desperate and often violent attempts to shore up their power in the face of democratic forces’ attempt to win change.

In Kenya, tensions were suppressed (but simmered below the surface) while Daniel arap Moi imposed his will on the people for two decades. Democracy was partly achieved when some members of the elite, most notably current President Mwai Kibaki, went over to the opposition and won the last election. But the Kibaki government proved far more like the one it had replaced than Kenyan democrats had hoped and so the ODM emerged to challenge Kibaki. Despite the mealy-mouthed response of the international community, the evidence suggests that the ruling elite thwarted this attempt to deepen democracy by creatively embellishing the election results. Again, the conflict is caused by democratic pressures and the old elite’s response to them.

In Nigeria, a new push for greater democracy began with the fall of the Abacha junta. Previous president Olusegun Obasanjo was elected at the polls but tried to change the Constitution to give himself a third term. Parliament rejected the attempt and so he relied on a strategy also tried in some other countries — he stayed on as head of the ruling party and hand-picked its presidential candidate. But he continues to face resistance, both because the election in which Obasanjo’s choice, Umaru Yar’Adua, won was riddled with irregularities and because Yar’Adua has not turned out as compliant as his predecessor had hoped (a problem that also faced some other presidents who tried to control their successors after their terms were up). Again, the cause of the conflict is the push for more democracy and the elite’s reaction to it.

Here, Jacob Zuma’s victory was prompted by claims that Thabo Mbeki was not accountable enough to the ANC — and fears that a third term would entrench him further. We do not know whether the new leadership will be more democratic than the old — but it remains possible that ANC activists will hold it to account if it is not.

The pattern is clear. The “right” of African presidents to rule for as long as they like, regardless of what their people may think, is under threat.

Mhambi hopes Steven Friedman is right, Mhambi himself is struggling to keep the faith at times.

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Mhambi's South Africa 2007

Mhambi is very late with this posting, my summary of Mhambi 2007.

Last year I described 2006 as a watershed year for South Africa in my posting Mhambi's 2006. A year in which open debate returned to South Africa.

If you remember, as Steven Friedman explained, this was not because of a new found commitment to democracy amongst our ruling political class, but because of the battle for control of the ANC and the state between the Mbeki and Zuma camps.

So 2007 started off with many of these 2006 debates carrying into the new year. In these debates Xolela Mangau was one of 2007's most acerbic and eloquent voices against creeping country wide corruption. Others like Rhoda Kadalie waded in.

Steeds De la Rey

There were more heated exchanges at the beginning of the year about the De la Rey song. What did it mean? What would it bring?

Leeu van die Wes Transvaal
Originally uploaded by Wildebeast1.


Tim du Plessis changed his mind (and not for the last time in 2007) . In 2006 he warned of deliberate Afrikaner civil disobedience, but now announced the arrival of a more confident participatory breed: the New Afrikaner. Pallo Jordan, the minister of Arts and Culture, warned against De la Rey song inspired treason.

The song reached the press in both the UK and US. And in the process it served as an amusing outing of international prejudices about Afrikaners.

But nowhere was its meaning as debated as among Afrikaners. Lefty journo Max du Preez saw in it the worst: racism, atavistic nationalism, a longing for the past. But poets and writers Antjie Krog, Koos Kombuis were not convinced with that line of argument.

But before you think South African 2007 debates were dominated just by a pop song. They were not. By years end it was out of the news completely.

In the US, a debate raged over what extent apartheid could be compared to current events in Israel.

Angola the country South Africa helped wreck celebrated 5 years of peace.

Britain and racism

Rather arbitrarily the BBC decided to screen a blatantly racist tribute to colonial writer Rider Haggart. Perhaps not surprising as in 2007 it transpired that Britain is a society with little self awareness when it comes to racism.

2007 was a year when racism boiled over on British TV, when Jade Goodie and other white Big Brother contestants ganging up on Indian star Shilpa Shetty. The incident had the country in a tizz. The press especially were aghast, while admitting at the same time that the opinions expressed were prevalent in British society.

Many left commentators defended Goody: she was working class, and more likely to be exposed to multi-cultural Britain than her critics they claimed. A good example was Philosopher Julian Baggini who spent six months living in Rotherham, Yorkshire. In the Guardian he professed that he doesn't believe most white Britons are racists - even though he heard racist language almost everywhere he went.

On the cultural and media front trade union solidarity won the global award for the best union website. Gazelle released a funky a stomping Afrikaans electro track, while two movies cataloging life in gay South Africa, screened in London.

Facebook took the world by storm in 2007. Also in South Africa, despite the privatised national telecoms provider Telcom's parasitic and damaging impact on the countries internet ecosystem.

Bad news aplenty

Bad news about the break down of trust and public institutions came a plenty. Many of which, like the Hlophe affair and the scandalous neglect at the Frere hospital Mhambi never wrote about himself.

Wabenzi
Originally uploaded by Wildebeast1.


I did write about the alleged corruption of the National Health minister, who was not fired, even after it was claimed that she was an alcoholic and a thief. Instead the government tried to muzzle the press. There were other posts of Afro-pessimism. Events like the casual destruction of monuments in Standerton helped to spread the gloom.

The astounding growth of crime and the corruption inside the South African police continued to make waves internationally. Journalists like Jonny Steinberg tried to make sense of the corruption and crime.

In 2007 there were less reports of xenophobic attacks on other Africans by South Africans like which transpired in 2006 when scores of Somalis were murdered. Now the focus shifted to extreme indifference towards other Africans best illustrated by the death of Adonis Musati in Cape Town.

There were valiant attempts from South Africans to reach out to each other, like when Hansie Diffenthal tried to save Halaletsang Nkome.

The Rugby World Cup

But so too did the Rugby World Cup loom large. It became clear that racial make up of the South African Springbok team would be an issue. In fact, the ANC also wanted to change the teams ' iconic name.

As the first big match of the cup approached, between SA and England, the English press went to town with prejudicial reporting: South Africans were stupid and not "every inch Western gentlemen". The verbal barrage did not save the English from a battering on the pitch however.

Neither could the spectre of Che Guevarra help the Argentines against a rampant Springbok side.

Jusr before the final The Guardian published a curious rugby article by Gavin Evans, which was duly pulled apart by readers.

Then, despite all this, the Springboks won. And Mbeki tried to surf the wave of glory. The Bok name became non issue.

Mbeki vs Zuma

He certainly needed it. Such was the the growing opposition to his control freakery that too many it seemed that he would loose the election for ANC presidency the end of the year. That placed many South Africans between a rock and a hard place who wanted neither Mbeki or Zuma in charge. Cyril Rhamaphosa entering the race was one of our great hopes.

Mbeki could and did continue to point out how the economy has grown under his leadership. But doubts remained about his success in addressing poverty.

But his Aids denialism still hung over him like a shadow, with Mark Gevisser confirming and explaining it upon the publishing of his monumental biography of Mbeki. 2007 was also the year in which a minimum number was put to the deaths caused by Mbeki's Aids inaction: 300 000.

Another book, Andrew Feinstein's After the Party, cataloged the ANC's move away from democracy and decent into grand corruption. Mhambi cerealised some of it.

By the end of the year it became clear that Mbeki would hit a wall. Some of us, Mhambi included, were optimistic. The inability of the incumbent holding on to power was that the openness had prevailed, a sign of democracy. And so Mbeki did hit a wall. Karplaks!

Better the devil you know?

Down went Mbeki, and enter stage 'left' Zuma. 2008 will no doubt be as interesting.

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We are marching to Polokwane, Polokwane

Mhambi has a "lied is sy hart" this morning. Not entirely sure why I'm so lyrical, but perhaps its because I'm in lovely South Africa and the paradoxical jittery energy induced after a bout of too much red wine last night.

This week after having read After the Party my suspicions that a Zuma presidency could do the country some good was roundly confirmed.

And today Steven Friedman and Sipho Seepe lifted my already good mood with two articles in the Business Day (Weird how South Africa's best social journalism comes form a business newspaper).

In an article tittled The open contest nobody could stop Friedman muses about the good that this open content is doing us, "...unless someone in the ANC leadership pulls a last-minute rabbit out of the hat, next week will see the first contested election for ANC president in 58 years — for the first time since we became a democracy, the leader of the governing party will have been chosen not by other leaders but by those to whom that person is responsible.

...

This country achieved democracy partly because adversaries who realised that they could not eliminate each other accepted that their best interests lay in negotiating democratic rules. The rules were not anyone’s first choice, but not only have leaders learned to live with them — they now enjoy wide public support.

This is not unique to SA, or even unusual — leaders often settle on democratic rules because they are the best way of adjusting to realities they wish were otherwise. So misgivings about the presidential race inside the ANC may not prevent it becoming a watershed. ANC insiders who lament an open contest may later look back on it fondly as the time when the principle of open elections was established. Even if they do not, they may find that the contest for members’ votes which they failed to avoid this time becomes the only conceivable way of doing things in future."

In another article Chance for SA to recommit itself to democracy Sipho Seepe, lays into the ANC's culture of intolerance and the corruption of the Mbeki regime. Polekwane is to him a chance to reassert our liberty.

"WE ARE led to believe the ongoing bloodletting in the African National Congress (ANC) is somehow alien to the party.

Far from it, this is a consequence of the ANC’s culture of intolerance and its insatiable appetite for power. The culture can be traced as far back as the 1980s when the ANC sought to entrench its political hegemony.

...

Mandela was labelled an agent of the pharmaceutical companies when he called on the government to roll out antiretroviral medication to pregnant HIV-infected women. Cronin was told that the ANC did not need a white messiah. Similarly, Tutu was branded a liar and a creation of the white media.

The bloodletting we see is a case of chickens coming home to roost. The ferocity of the attacks is fuelled by the scramble for resources and the corrupting patronage that has become a defining feature of the Mbeki regime. We mistakenly overrated the ANC’s democratic credentials by equating the struggle for democracy with a commitment to democracy.

The declaration by ANC parliamentarians that the Zimbabwean elections were fundamentally free and fair despite the state-sponsored terror preceding them should have sent warning signals. The ANC is not beyond resorting to similar undemocratic practices should its political power base be threatened.

The deployment of ministers, state resources and state organs in a last-ditch attempt to preserve the status quo should come as no surprise. The vulgarity of ministers carrying bags of money to buy votes speaks volumes about the investment attached to the Mbeki project.

...it is not uncommon for leaders to be asked to recuse themselves from office once they have suffered defeat. PW Botha was replaced by FW de Klerk when his party lost confidence in him. The same happened to Margaret Thatcher and recently to Tony Blair. Only those who fear democracy can advance such baseless notions that removing Mbeki would be undemocratic.

Democracy involves fundamentally changing the guard. SA should not short-change itself in its embrace of the democratic project. We need to remind ourselves — the price of freedom is eternal vigilance."

Amen.

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Don't say Mhambi did not tell you so

Prof Anton Harber confirmed today that he agrees with Mhambi. Zuma's showing in ANC nomination bodes well for the ANC, democracy and the country.

I think this is a moment to celebrate, a time to step back from the question of who is winning and recognise the victory for the processes of democracy. The test we have passed, and countries such as Zimbabwe and Angola have failed, is our capacity to challenge incumbency. We have made it clear in the past few weeks that, however dominant the ANC is as a party, no president can be secure in office if he or she neglects their base. The party leadership failed timeously to challenge Mbeki on such disasters as his AIDS policies, but the party membership rose to the occasion when their time came.

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Mbeki pole-axed at Polekwane?

All week dark clouds have gathered around Johannesburg. It was cold and miserable. And then today, alas, the sun broke through.

But in the posh coffee shops of Parktown the mood is somber.

As the Polekwane leadership contest for the ANC's top job (and perhaps the countries) nears, all indications are that the much reviled Jacob Zuma will win.

Zuma, you might remember, has fallen out with many: Not only Mbeki's cronies, but also the champagne socialialists, as well as polite middleclass South African society in general.

Mhambi is more sanguine: I'm on record saying that Zuma can not be worse than Mbeki and that he might be better.

A more open ANC?

Something else that many people seem to miss is how remarkable the situation is, particularly in an African context. A party kicks out the incumbent President by way of its branch membership. That is very rare.

Is this revolution only an example of banal factionalism, or a sign of the ANC as an organisation's inherently mature democratic core?

That will depend on how the ANC treats the loosers. Whether the party and government becomes beset by a Stalinist kind of control freakery and stifles debate as it did a few years ago during Mbeki's zenith of power.

In the mean time I'm enjoying the sun shine.

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Athol Fugard joins the worried chorus

Athol Fugard has become the latest in a long line of famous South African writers, poets and playrights (many of whom with strong anti-aparthied credentials) to express his doubts about the way South Africa is heading.

He has a new play out - Victory - which has premiered in Bath.

Fugard has told the BBC how a series of violent burglaries at his home inspired him to write his latest work.

Victory, according to the BBC, paints a bleak picture of modern South Africa. It centres on a violent burglary of an elderly white widower committed by two black teenagers, Freddie and Victoria.

Fugard told BBC World Service's The Ticket programme that he took the theme after his own home was burgled on four occasions in the last two years - the last of which involved someone he trusted.

Last year authors like Andre Brink and Rian Malan lamented the parlous state of law and order in South Africa. Malan saw sad decay in the countries future. But Brink saw something far more ominous - slaughter.

Nadine Gordimer was mugged in her home, but she stayed positive, preferring to blame the violence on the government for not helping the poor.

J M Coetzee meanwhile immigrated, and when asked why, declined to comment, saying leaving ones country is a difficult thing to do and a personal matter. He now resides in Australia, but still engages with South African issues.

Pessimistic yes, but do courageous things

Fugard a while ago revealed that he is a big fan - like Mhambi - of Camus. In fact its hard to believe that any lefty South African can not feel, given his writing and personal history, some natural attraction to Camus. Camus informs Fugards attitute to life: a state of courageous pessimism. Said Fugard of Camus:

The concept that comes to mind immediately -- it remains as true for me today as it did for me back then -- what I think he defines at some point in one of his notebooks as “courageous pessimism”. The fact that the condition is ultimately pessimistic -- the one that we face as human beings in a hostile world, in a hostile universe -- but that we need courage. Given courage, there are certain things we can do which gives us dignity.

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Tokio big in Jozi tonight

There's a buzz about Tokio Sexwale's talk at wits University tonight. And no wonder. south Africans would like to have a public debabte about who should be the next president of the country. So far Sexwale has been the only person to publically announce his candidacy AND engage with the public.

Xolela Mangcu says in Business day today :

History tells us that it takes courageous, public-oriented leadership to bring about that adaptive transition into a new world.

In Tokyo Sexwale’s talk at the Wits Great Hall tonight is fully booked. It can be obtained on www.public-con-versations.org.za.

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Mhambi's South Africa 2006

Open debate, Aids, Gays, Poverty

2006 was a watershed year for South Africa. It was a year that saw more open debate than at any time since the all democratic elections of 1994. Why? Because the monolithic ANC dominated political discourse was shattered with the infighting between the Zuma and Mbeki camps.

tragedy in south africa...aids has left a mark (South Africa)
Originally uploaded by Matt'satwwJ.

Deputy president Zuma was of course cleared of a rape charge and then the charge for corruption was withdrawn.

For the first time people and the press felt free to openly question excepted wisdom on many issues. As with most open debate, some times this questioning was good, "should the government not have spent more on the poor?" Sometimes bad: "Why give gays rights?" The specter of political campaigning along ethnic and tribal lines also raised its ugly head.

But one of the most benign effects of this opening up was that it allowed more debate on Mbeki's disastrous Aids policy that has the cost the lives of thousands of South Africans. By year end the government had changed its policy, lets hope they can implement this new policy far wide and fast.

The question remained, was this a sign of a maturing democracy or just an opening up as a consequence of a jostling for power in the ruling party?

De la Rey makes a comeback

It was also the year in which some detected the stirrings of resurgent Afrikaner nationalism and unity. A response to the renaming of towns and cities, crime, corruption, affirmative action and a general sense of exclusion of the once dominant group. This even found expression in phenomena like the extremely popular De la Rey song of a young Afrikaner, Bok van Blerk.

White intellectuals made their voices heard to. In concert authors like Brink and Malan lamented the parlous state of law and order. Malan saw a sad decay, but Brink saw slaughter in the future. Nadine Gordimer was mugged in her home, but she stayed positive, preferring to blame the government for not helping the poor.

The meaning of Africaness

Another intellectual, Van Zyl Slabbert, articulated another new trend that became increasingly visible during the year. The growing racial exclusive ideology that only black South Africans could be African, and not white coloured or asian ones.

It was not just South African white writers that were negative, so too people like UK Guardian South African correspondent Rory Carroll. He never quite fell for South Africa because it "took a sledge hammer to his cherished progressive ideals".

Another Brit, Nick Broomfield, managed to produce both the most entertaining and most out of touch documentary of the year about South Africa, "His big white self".

A booming economy

All this pessimism while one could be forgiven for asking what all the fuss was about - the South African economy appeared in rude health - growing at record levels for a record period. But, the growth has so far been very slow on delivering South African jobs. The rich is getting richer and the poor poorer.

Violence

White trash
Originally uploaded by Hermosdef.

Violence continued across the country as in the past few years. Black South Africans were still more likely to be killed than white ones, usually by other black South Africans and often by somebody they know. If you were foreign and black you were in real danger. Especially Somali business men were targeted in a spate of killings across the country.

PW Botha, the last apartheid defending leader of the country passed away.

There was increasing debate about the countries history. Events like the Battle at Cuito Canavale in Angola are set to become a political battle field going forward.

And it was reported that nearly 800,000 white South Africans had immigrated since 1994. That's nearly 20% of the total.

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