Mandela - a tragic failure of leadership in Zimbabwe

"We watch with sadness the continuing tragedy in Darfur. Nearer to home we have seen the outbreak of violence against fellow Africans in our own country and the tragic failure of leadership in our neighbouring Zimbabwe."

Nelson Mandela condemned Robert Mugabe at a dinner in London last night. Judging from comments on UK websites many think its too little too late.

But as I posted yesterday, considering the history of antagonism between Mandela and Mbeki's ANC, I think people should cut Mandela slack.

It is also encouraging that he focussed not only on Zimbabwe, but on Darfur, and our own countries problems. Thabo Mbeki will no doubt be furious at Nelson's interference and 'pandering to the West'.

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BBC looks at SA reconciliation success and failure

This week Mhambi's favorite radio station BBC Radio 4 has flighted two good documentaries about reconciliation in South Africa. The one, is positive and represents all we could hope to have achieved. It tells the story of musician Roger Lucey and security branch policeman Paul Erasmus. Paul effectively destroyed Lucey's career.

Today they are close friends.

The second, Race and Reconciliation, tells the depressing tale of the rise of racism in South Africa. It includes interviews with students from the University of Pretoria and the Skierlik killer's pastor. It was made before the outbreak of xenophobic violence but is good none the less.

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Mhambi's post rugby blues

After the Springboks won the Rugby World Cup Mhambi felt strangely empty. It was not how I expected to feel. How weird, because Mhambi only just dared to hope that the Bokke will pull off a victory.

Lets be clear, considering the trails and trebulations of this team, the difficulty on winning the World Cup, what a victory would portend politically and the potential ramifications it could have, this was enormous.


Loneliness
Originally uploaded by fabdany.

The decline of Springbok rugby
Let's just recap. Here we have a team, once arguably the best in the world, who had four years ago slipped to such an extent that countries like Scotland (no offence Scotland) thought the Boks would be for there for the taking.

The UK Guardian prior to the previous World Cup in 2003 described the Springboks and being dinosaurs on their way to extinction.

Partly this lack of form was because of the morose depression amongst the mostly Afrikaner rugby playing public. The future was uncertain, crime was rife, there was no room for an expression of political decent or other identities in the country. Whites were immigrating in droves.

But there were more immediate reasons for the loss of form. The team was forced to choose a quota of black players to make it more representative of South Africa. Often the team coach had only a handful of choices of players who cut mustard at a provincial level. And on an international level these few players were often just not good enough.

Jake White chose his quota players in positions where he believed he could get away with it. At prop where knowledge of the dark art of the scrum could be a useful screen of defeciencies. And at wing, where cover defences have more time to react. But this practise did not always mask the deficiencies and oposition teams cottoned on to the weak links. Weak scrumming cost the Boks losses against teams like Wales, a team South Africa had never lost to. It cost us record losses against The All Blacks.

The incredible difficulty of managing a team like this is illustrated the fact that when the team suffered an injury of a black player at wing, White had to also replace another position where he had a black player available (like at prop), if the replacement wing was not black himself. An all white rugby team was simply politically unacceptable.

The pretence of representation
Why this aggressive push by the ANC in an attempt to make the Boks black? This push was not couched in the language of inclusive representation. The struggle for South Africa is as I said before, not just about race. But it is also about two competing sets of nationalism: Afrikaner and African nationalism.

It has been said that the team should be majority black and not merely be more representative. It has even been suggested that the likes of Habana and Pietersen, coloured players, are not black and therefore African enough. And not too long ago ANC members called for this team's white member's passports to be confiscated to prevent them from going to France. And weeks before the World Cup were to start the ANC called for the Springbok name and logo to be replaced.

To Afrikaners who increasingly claim their culture, contributions and history are being wiped from South Africa, this announcement was of more devastating import than the recent name changes of Afrikaner named towns.

When Mhambi wears his cynical hat, this effort from the ANC looks more like a ploy to extend centralist control into another part of South African life, while at the same time killing off one of the only remaining platforms of Afrikaner culture, identity and expression.

But some qouta selections came good. Breyton Paulse for instance developed into a quality and classy international wing. And then came the likes of Bryan Habana. Not only would he be of international standard, he is arguably the best in his position in the world. Come the World Cup White needed at least one other black player to satisfy the politicians. Try as he might Ashwin Willemse was not showing his early promise. J P Pietersen, the man with weak defence and butter fingers made a match winning tackle and ran dangerously, scoring regularly. He became another winger that came good during this World Cup.

Mecurial Percy Montgomery went on to kick all the goals that mattered, Butch James toned down his testosterone, and Frans Steyn did nothing stupid.

And incredibly the Boks went on to win the World Cup.

Wow. And hey, Mhambi has to admit that considering our history it was great that the team was not all white.


rugby world cup2007.jpg
Originally uploaded by jimfitzpix.

So why the empty feeling Mhambi?

Standing on the shoulders of giants
The sight of Thabu Mbeki, the politician that did so much to ditch the talk of reconciliation and reracialised South African political discourse, being carried victorious shoulder high at the Stade de France was nauseating. How Thabu would love a bit of Madiba magic to rub off on his paranoid shoulders in an election year. As the rugby writer Siyabonga Mchunu observed, “it was not the Springboks that needed Mbeki’s support ... It was Mbeki who needed the support of the World Cup champions.” What a farce!

When the Springboks won the cup in 1995, Mhambi was dancing in the streets along with black and white South Africans, brimming with positive hope for the future of our young democracy.

How different it would feel 12 years later. Hlophe, Selebi, Manto and manifold other ghosts haunt our country. Mhambi thought to himself, is this the last time South Africa celebrates, ever? What does this victory mean? Is it but a parting shot? A blip in our terminal decline? After all just the night before the victory reggae star Lucky Dube had been shot.

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Help me make sense of De Klerk

Mhambi is trying to make sense of his Presidents. In a second extract from Country of my skull, Antjie Krog wrestles with the enigma that is FW de Klerk.

Today is obviously the day.

As usual, the Chairperson lays the table for the fatal encounter. He praises De Klerk for his contribution to peace in the country, he quotes from the Bible, he prays, he speaks Afrikaans, he smiles. But accross the table De Klerk seems in total control. He alone takes the oath. He alone is going to speak. Former State President PW Botha has refused to cooperate with the NP (National Party) on its submission. No predecessors, no Ministers, no Generals to escort De Klerk. His isolation form the senior leadership of the past is total.

And it becomes lawyer against lawyer. In his submission, De Klerk says that the gross human rights violations committed in the past were due to the bad judgement, overzealousness or negligence of individual policemen.

In his questioning, Glen Goosen (advocate and TRC investigation unit head) takes up De Klerk's phrasing. It becomes a chorus: 'The Cradock Four, those who were resonsible - was it bad judgement, over zealousness or negligence? The Pebco Three, those who were responsible - was it bad judgement, over zealousness or negligence?

'But this is ridiculous' De Klerk protests.
'Please answer my question,' says Goosen.

It soon becomes clear the the Truth Commision will get nowhere with this line of questioning.

The Commission sees De Klerk as a leader come to explain the past; but in fact he is fighting for the survival of his party. The Commission has not taken into account the fact that the National Party is in serious trouble.; Roelf Meyer, De Klerk's second in command and the most prominent NP figure in negotiations, has resigned just the day before the submission. De Klerk is not there to look the past in the eye.

He is there to minimise damage and play on the sentiments of his voters.

And these are: we did not know, we are just as shocked as you are and we feel that these people are criminals who should be punished. De Klerk sates repeatedly that his whole upbringing, his entire experience of politics allowed no room for the kinds of atrocities now coming to the surface.

And yes, then everybody, from General Johan van der Merwe (the previous Commissioner of Police under De Klerk) who misled him, down to the foot soldier who did the deed, is a bad apple. And he resists the line of questioning, the documents used, the assumptions made, his delegations errupts: 'Shame!.... Sies! ... Witch-hunt!'

The end of the hearing is in sharp contrast to the previous day. No inspiring words, no prayer from the Chairperson, who sits deeply sunken in his chair.
I go to the cross-examiner: 'What the fuck did you want him to say?'
'I wanted him to say: "Although I did'nt know about it, the fact that we never condemned these killings outright may have led people lower down in the ranks to belive it was our policy."
'My God, but that is not so impossible to say! Except you allowed him only one route to it, and that is the route he as an embattled political leader could not afford to take.'

I pack up my recorder, laptop and cassettes.

Outside in Addderly street someone tugs at my skirt. 'Do you know Brecht's poem "In favour of a long, broad skirt?"

I am so distressed, so full of unformulated despair that I cannot answer. Come he says... he gives me wine. He ties up my hair, He washes my feet in the cool water. He feeds me thin slices of raw meet.

'Help me make sense of De Klerk.'
'It's easy. The safety net they strung up for the ANC yesterday was not there today. They were out to get him and they could'nt'
'Then why do I expect better from the Commission, but not from De Klerk?'

'There you are wrong. De Klerk has just dissapointed millions of people because he refuses to think of more than covering his wickets against Roelfie. De Kelrk has always been like that. All the changes were made because of some small practical reason - he has never had vision.'

'But the Truth Commission are the moral lot. If they give up on De Klerk and the Afrikaner, then how can they expect the rest of the country to live with us?'

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The responsibility of a leader

Antjie Krog covered the Truth and Reconcilation Comission hearings as a journalist. Journalism she won severla prizes for, and which she compiled into the book Country of my Skull.

The hasty arrival of a bodyguard and senior politicians brings me to my senses.

"You have fallen hook line and sinker for the ANC's attempt to put the blame on the Afrikaner. And I am sorry - I will not tkake the blame for people who acted like barbarians, who ignored the paramaters of their duties, they are criminals and ought to be punished."

I think of her (her mother) and how I love her. How I was brought up with what is the best and the proudest in the Afrikaner. And I wonder about the responsibility of a leader.

Should'nt he be establishing a space within which we can confront ourselves and our past? Should'nt he bring to the table the Afrikaners blunt honesty and fearlessness to grabble with the impossible? So that we canb perticipate in the building of this country with self-respect and dignity?

Can't he just say: " I did'nt know, but I will take the responsibility. I will take responsibility for all the atrocities committed under the National Party's rule over the last 50 years. I will lay wreaths where people had been shot, I will collect money for the victims, I will ask forgiveness and I will pray. I will take the responsibility. I will take the blame."

Is truth that closely related to identity? It must be. What you believe to be true depends on who you believe yourself to be.

I look at the Leader in front of me, an Afrikaner leader. And suddenly I know: I have more in common with the Vlakplaas five (Police death squad members) than with this man. Because they have walked a road, and through them some of us have walked a road, and hundreds of Afrikaners are walking this road - on their own with their own fears and shame and guilt. And some say it, most just live it. We are so utterly sorry. We are deeply ashamed and gripped with remorse. But hear us, we are from here. We will live it right - hear - with you, for you.

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BBC gets it wrong on FW

The BBC made a pretty serious mistake in their reporting on the VLok case.

In an aricle titled "South Africa reopens old wounds" they claim:

In South Africa, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was established to try to ease the pain.

Past wrongs could be confessed to and forgiven.

Many refused to attend, including the last white President FW de Klerk.

But De Klerk of course did attend, but he refused to admit that he knew of state sponsored killings. It was the previous President PW Botha that refused to attend.

They go on to say that:

The fighters of South Africa's African National Congress (ANC), Namibia's Swapo and Zimbabwe's Zanu or Zapu did not win the long-predicted and much hoped for military victory.

Their leaders, including Nelson Mandela, Sam Nujoma and Robert Mugabe respectively, agreed on a simple but unspoken compromise: political power would pass into the hands of the majority black population, but whites would be allowed to retain most of their wealth.

And all sides would put the atrocities of the past behind them.

In this they learnt from Angola and Mozambique, where the Portuguese left taking everything they could carry - including any light bulbs that could be unscrewed.

Which is a bit like comparing apples and pairs. One of the main differences in all the countries mentioned bar South Africa, is that they had tiny white populations that described themsleves as Portuguese or English rather than African and who at best were 3rd generation African and probably first. Angola at its height had 350,000 whites, the majority of who arrived after WW2 to 1970. Today there is not even 10,000 whites in Angola. Ditto Mozambique, although their white population was allot smaller. Zimbabwe had a white settlement of 400,00 at its height that was not even 100 years old, now they have less than 40,000. Namibia had 70,000 Afikaners from South Africa with a smattering of Germans. Today they still have about the same.

Compare that to South Africa's 5 million Afrikaners (Africans) who had almost all arrived by 1800.

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De Klerk should speak the truth and take responsibility

Today the UK Guardian covered - in a full page article - the possible threat of prosecution of FW De Klerk for Apartheid era crimes.

The cases in question revolved around a 1993 raid by army Commandos on what is claimed was thought to be a Pan Africanist Congress(PAC) safe house used to plan terrorist attacks. The dead in the raid were 5 teenagers. Allegedly, shot in their beds.

De Klerk has gone on record stating that he seeked assurances that the targets where indeed justified, and were horrified at the botched execution.

Potentially legally more damning is the case of the poisoning of Frank Chikane. Former Law and Order minister Adriaan Vlok is being prosecuted in this matter, and according to a Sunday newspaper, Vlok is plea bargaining with the prosecution and implicating De Klerk.

Mhambi studied law. And although I have little information on this case I would be surprised if Vlok had anything more than his word with which to implicate FW even if he wanted to. But this is not just a matter of law.

De Klerk was a member of the state security council from the mid 80's. And there is proof that he attended meetings where members of the council discussed "shortening the list of politically sensitive individuals by means other than detention". He refused to answer a question about that meeting at the TRC hearings. Today he declines to interpret what the phrasing might have meant but denies ever endorsing a decision to assassinate activists.



The Guardian names another example of potential De Klerk SSC complicity:

Secret minutes of another state security council meeting attended by Mr de Klerk show he supported a decision to "remove" Matthew Goniwe, a black teacher in the Eastern Cape described by security forces as "at the forefront of a revolutionary attack against the state".

Two days after the meeting, a security policemen visited Cradock, where Mr Goniwe lived, to size up how best to kill him.


De Klerk claims today that although he was a member of the state security council it was not briefed "on clandestine operations involving murders, assassinations or the like - all of which were evidently carried out strictly on a 'need to know' basis".

This is not surprising. It would be too easy to get caught.

And legally this may enough. But it is another indicator sign-posting the pathetic leadership path travelled by De Klerk.



German Chancellor Willy Brandt kneeling before the Poles.

After making his paradigm shifting move in 1990, unbanning the ANC and releasing Mandela, and instigating investigations into state death squads, extra responsibilities rested on his shoulders. But he failed this promise and us. De Klerk made serious moral blunders, while conviction and courage to see it through suddenly escaped him.

His failure to go back to his white electorate after promising at the 1992 referendum that he will, was the smallest of these blips. His sulky vanishing from public life in 1996 after he was humiliatingly out-negotiated at the peace negotiations left his constituency in the lurch when he could have helped to solidify the transition and reconciliation.

And when he was called upon to do what no other Afrikaner could legitimately do, he failed Afrikaners completely. De Klerk maintained at the TRC that although he attended these meetings of the State Security council that he knew nothing, he explained nothing and he was not prepared to offer a wider apology.

Antjie Krog was there at the TRC and explains her utter dejectedness well in Country of my Skull. When Afrikaners needed a leader to admit and say sorry for all the hurt they caused De Klerk stormed out of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearing. Where was our Willy Brandt when we needed him?

De Klerk must have known something was going on and that it was extra legal. Why then the reluctance to admit it? Why not point out that the state thought it necessary to fight fire with fire? There was a violent revolution going on aimed at overthowing the state. That this revolution was in many ways justified is a seperate matter in which lies the rub: it was the systematic discrimination of apartheid that made apartheid especially bad, not it's defence.

He could point to the fact that after the brutal intervention of the security branch in places like Mamelodi, these townships became peaceful.

De Klerk could show that relatively few people died in political conflict in the 40 years of Nationalist rule in African and even South American comparative terms.

According to the TRC report (which Mhambi reckons is actually an underestimation) just over 20,000 people died in political violence during Nationalist rule (1948 - 1994). That's a years worth of South African homicides. Discounting miltarty casualties, compare that with 27,000 women and children and 14,000 plus black South Africans dying in British camps during the Boer war. And the same number of killings in one year of Robert Mugabe's rule.

It pales against the intensity of the violence of the French war in Algeria, or Britains suppression of the Mau Mau rebellion on Kenya. And De Klerk could well argue that the stakes were higher. Let's not even go into the details of the violent conflicts in Biafra, Ethiopia, Rwanda, the Congo and now in Darfur. If violence is the barometor of guilt, the Nationalists would be more complicit for their involvment in the Angolan conflict than at home.

It's for the systematic discrimination that infected our town planning, architecture and inter personal relations that cemented inequality into the fabric of South African society, that an Afrikaner leader needs to say a deep heartfelt and profound sorry for.

Is it because the self righteous and religious De Klerk believed his own hype? Or perhaps he could not admit to his own ultra religious constituency that his and his colleagues denials of impropriety over the years were in fact just lies, damn lies?

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Oskido should remix De la Rey

For the sake of our rainbow, says Aubrey Matshiqi, Oskido should remix the now controversial song about the Boer War General.

All of us must take ownership of the De la Rey song to deny bigots the opportunity of turning it into something ugly and reactionary when it is not. I am going to buy the CD because it does warm that part of my black blood that comes from my Afrikaner ancestor, Bartman. Maybe in taking ownership of the song, we must ask someone like DJ Fresh or DJ Oskido to remix it into a house tune for a wider, nonracial audience.

Touche says Mhambi. Can't agree more.

According to Matshiqi both whites and blacks (how refreshing that he does not talk of whites and Africans) should realise that they comprise of a majority in some sense.

The challenge, therefore, is for black and white South Africans to recognise that there are times when they are part of a majority. Black people as part of a numerical majority must defend and advance the rights of numerical minorities because in doing this they will be showing the confidence and leadership that is sometimes lacking among us. White people, as part of a cultural majority, must act in ways that promote the cultural rights of their black counterparts because, in doing so, they will be displaying a sense of humility that is sometimes lacking in debates about identity and cultural rights.

Problem is Aubrey, that allot of what you think of as white culture, Afrikaners see as a bland foreign version of English or American culture, sometimes rightly sometimes wrongly.
Aubrey also says:

Since the extent to which a black person is unable to speak an African language has, to some, become a measure of their sophistication and civilisation, the day is near when we will no longer be able to blame apartheid for the marginalisation of African culture and languages.

The same could have been said of Afrikaans, 150 years ago. Today Afrikaners see the inability of black South Africans to use their own language as the same pscycological subservience they suffered from. If only Biko was still alive.

(As an aside, Afrikaners at least did not call their rugby teams, Maritizburg United, Helenic, Ajax Cape Town, Bloemfontein Celtic, nor the league the Premiership. Nor was Pretoria named, Nieuw Amsterdam or East London, or Potchefstroom Brugge or any of the other major towns named by the Voortrekkers named after a European equivalent. They were all unique to South Africa.)

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