Hope as a weapon: Obama, Eskom and Zuma

Hope exists only because of despair.

Panic thrives among the ignorant.

Discrimination lives in those who fear their own inadequacy.

Let’s have a look at what that means for the United States this week as it heads toward Super Duper Tuesday on February 5 and the strongest indicators yet of who its next president might be.

Let’s examine too, the lessons for South Africa as it elevates whingeing to an art form.

It’s worth going back 22 years to June 1966, when Bobby Kennedy said at the University of Cape Town: “Each time a man stands for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope. And, crossing each other from a million different centres of energy and daring, these ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.”

Time has enhanced the meaning of those words. They remain as important in the US and South Africa now as they did then, except hope is no longer a wispy four-letter word; it has power mightier than weapons.

It must have been Barack Obama’s Kenyan ancestors who inspired him to write a book called The Audacity of Hope, because on no continent is hope more persistent, despite endless disappointment, than Africa.

Those without vision can look at the candidacy of Obama and say the US is not yet ready for a black president. That’s what they said before John F Kennedy was voted the 35th president of the US in 1961 — he was too young, too liberal, he was Irish and a Catholic (two groups conventionally discriminated against in US political and business life at the time).

And yet, Kennedy remains one of America’s most beloved presidents despite serving little more than two years in office before he was assassinated.

Last week I received an email from an American student who said: “Obama won’t get in because he is black, but you can’t imagine the hope he has given to people in their 20s.” Did she not see how contradictory her view was?

A friend who is a Washington professor and a family friend of the Kennedys and Clintons spoke of walking into Georgetown University’s cafeteria when Obama was making his speech after winning South Carolina. He wrote to me: “They were grouped around the television listening in the way people do when you know history is being made.”

In a world tired of politicians more interested in sound bytes than people, more obsessed with posturing on international platforms than contemplating conditions in hospitals, Obama brings hope for real change.

It is precisely because he has not been long in politics that he will be a great president. He isn’t a cliché. He doesn’t rely on focus groups more than his own intellect. He doesn’t prioritise the views of lobbyists over those of common folk. He listens. He consults. He watches. He is slow to enter conflict; he prioritises unity above division.

In a nation that once led the world and is now scorned because it chose to target all of Islam as the enemy because of the work of 19 suicide bombers, Obama could lead the US to greatness again if he makes America a team. Every great team affects not just its own project, but also strengthens those around it.

In 1998 at the World Economic Forum in Durban, Thabo Mbeki spoke of his vision of an African renaissance. A South African stood up and said: “Mr Deputy President, I move that you should lead it.”

Mbeki smiled and said: “Other African presidents are here, what do they think?”

Joaquim Chissano, then president of Mozambique, rose and said: “Mr Mbeki, there are many challenges in South Africa. If you can lead by example, by resolving the problems at home, then we in the continent will follow you.”

Mbeki ignored that wise counsel and spent scant time at home while trying to tell the continent how to get its affairs in order. One of the casualties was the erection of power stations: in 1998 he said these were not necessary for South Africa. Instead he got Eskom to turn its attention to erecting power stations in other African countries. It brought light to some and threw our home into darkness.

Similarly, George Bush tried to deflect from his deficiencies as a leader by going to war with Iraq. It has not only destroyed Iraq, but the US economy is faltering. Mbeki’s posturing on the global stage has seen joblessness rise here, racial polarisation re-emerge, education and healthcare all but collapse and the continent snigger as the lights go out. Politicians who use divide and rule always damage their nations.

Last week, 76-year-old Senator Edward Kennedy expressed what could also be seen as the South African dream when he, with Caroline Kennedy, the only surviving heir of John F Kennedy, and Ted Kennedy’s son, Patrick, a congressman, endorsed the candidature of Barack Obama: “Through Barack, I believe we will move beyond the politics of fear and personal destruction and unite our country with the politics of common purpose.”

Kennedy continued: “With Barack Obama, we will turn the page on the old politics of misrepresentation and distortion … we will close the book on the old politics of race against race, gender against gender, ethnic group against ethnic group, and straight against gay.

“There was another time, when another young candidate was running for president and challenging America to cross a new frontier. He faced criticism from the preceding Democratic president, who was widely respected in the party. And John Kennedy replied, ‘The world is changing. The old ways will not do … It is time for a new generation of leadership.’ So it is with Barack Obama.”

The turn of every century brings revolutionary change and this is no different. Whether you are in business or politics, or even a writer, old forms of thinking are simply that: old. We need to address issues in new ways. We need to move beyond computers and books and go into the streets and listen and observe more than we spout off.

In business, organisations have flattened, hierarchy is out and team leadership is in. Why should it be different in politics? It’s not, except not all politicians have realised that. The internet and email see opinions move rapidly, changes are noted quickly, contradictions are immediately apparent, lies and falsity glare.

In Kenya, there is a revolution because a 72-year-old man, Mwai Kibaki, thought he could do what leaders across Africa have oft done — he stole the election. He issued orders to police to shoot to kill rioters, but the chances of a bullet finding its way to his heart have become greater.

At the African Union those who call themselves “leaders” did little to censure Kibaki, but their failures to protect citizens, even if they are not their own, are critically viewed. We know why African leaders don’t act against each other; it’s to prevent the day when they abuse and we react. They don’t want others to intervene when they begin detentions or issue orders of shoot to kill. They may get away with it for now, but the world is changing — there are empty cells at The Hague.

The freedoms promised by the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 were not confined to Europe. They were felt across the world. Without the Cold War, it became harder for leaders to distract voters about the enemy without; instead voters are increasingly sensitive to the flaws within their own countries and political and business leadership. The internet, which in 1989 was still in its infancy as a global phenomenon, only began growing through deliberate attempts by US agencies in Africa in 1996 — it is these networks of sharing and opinions that are starting to see people rebel against the inequity in their lives.

What does this mean for South Africa and our challenges with Eskom and fears around a change in political leadership? Firstly, the fears around Jacob Zuma are being stoked by a largely ignorant media. The clattering of empty vessels on blogs has reached a cacophony; if a handful has ever met Zuma it would be a miracle. They sit in pubs and at lunches and hear the ill-informed gossip of people who know less than them, then rush home and pound away on the keyboards.

I’ve been told by more than one glassy-eyed purveyor of rumour that the African National Congress’s new treasurer general, Mathews Phosa, was variously a corrupt premier of Mpumalanga and “dangerous”. Untrue scaremongering. Phosa was appointed as first premier of Mpumalanga by Nelson Mandela and under him it thrived. He was removed by Mbeki who saw him and Zuma’s bid for the presidency in 1999 as a threat. Since then the province has disintegrated under one corrupt leader after another, all appointed by Mbeki.

Phosa and Zuma arrived in South Africa in March 1990, a month after Mandela was released. It was their task to pave the way for early talks that led to the Groote Schuur summit in May of that year. The success of the negotiations process had much to do with Phosa.

His qualities as an individual speak too: he has been married for three decades to the same woman, a successful businesswoman. He is a devoted father, a brilliant lawyer and a skilled, though low-key businessman. A published poet in Afrikaans, he has long served as chairman of the Afrikaanse Sakekamer.

He typifies the words Mosiuoa Lekota once used to describe Mandela. Lekota told an interviewer: “Nelson Mandela taught us that if you can win the respect of your opponent, half the battle is won.” A decade later Lekota forgot those words when he threw his weight behind Mbeki’s third-term election bid. Lekota, a 1980s internal activist, forgot the golden rule of the 1980s struggle within the country: the movement is more important than the cult of personality. Forgetting that has destroyed Lekota’s political future.

When Mandela visited the US in 1990 after his release from prison and was treated as a conquering hero — with New York’s first black mayor, David Dinkins, hailing him as a “Moses” — he responded by saying: “It is a nice feeling for people to talk of you as a hero, but this is not really directed at me. I am used as a peg on which to hang all the adulation for the African National Congress and the people of South Africa.”

It’s not individuals that are important; it is their strength in uniting and inspiring that counts. It is about delivery.

At this time in South Africa, there is scant basis for hope — the merging of the Scorpions into the police is a decision from the ANC that gives cause for significant unease. But do I worry about the qualifications of Zuma over those of Mbeki? Are you kidding? Look at the mess Mbeki got us into.

Zuma is a man who listens and consults, who respects the poor and knows the fears of the rich. I trust such men more than those who believe they know.

As Obama said in Friday’s (February 1) CNN debate in California: “People now want leaders who they believe are on their side.”

* US voters living abroad, including in South Africa, can vote in this Tuesday (5 February) primary go to http://www.democratsabroad.org/events