President Thabo Mbeki has again displayed strength of character and human will, as well as signifying the triumph of eloquent persuasion over destructive populism, grandstanding and mindless theatrics that many of his misguided detractors pressured him towards.
Before the mass population of the country was liberated from the tyranny of apartheid, even in the dying days of apartheid, there were those populist and militant elements within the ANC and MK who were still inebriated by the armed struggle and revolutionary euphoria of the 1960s. On the day that FW de Klerk announced the release of Nelson Mandela, Thabo Mbeki was en route to Switzerland to meet the apartheid intelligence officials, while Chris Hani was in Lusaka planning to smuggle MK cadres into the country for some romanticised mission.
Many in the ANC were suspicious of Mbeki’s relentless talks with the enemy; many were against such talks – a narrow-minded position inspired by the revolutionary desire to see a violent overthrow of the apartheid government; a disappointing indication of a chronic revolutionary hangover!
Mbeki has continued to uphold the principles that dictate to sane men and men in full control of their reason; that constructive engagement almost always remains the only alternative in order to resolve conflicts and bear harmony; such principles which were the strong foundation in the construction of a super-highway to the Codesa negotiations and first democratic elections in 1994.
Mbeki remained resolute in his belief, amidst a barrage of insults and stinging criticism from all corners — from his own people, from his own comrades within the ANC, from his own counterparts in Africa and other parts of the world — that nothing but talks will liberate the masses from the manacles of vicious repression.
“I am born of the peoples of the continent of Africa. The pain of the violent conflict that the peoples of Liberia, Somalia, the Sudan, Burundi and Algeria is a pain I also bear. The dismal shame of poverty, suffering and human degradation of my continent is a blight that we share.”
On occasion of the adoption of our constitution in 1996, the president eloquently affirmed the nobility in being African and underscored the imperative for Africans to do it for themselves when he said, “Whatever the circumstances they [Africans] have lived through and because of that experience, they are determined to define for themselves who they are and who they should be”.
The media, afro-pessimists, skeptics, racists, populists and detractors alike formed a coalition for megaphone diplomacy in order to specifically advance particular interests. None of them have had a favourable assessment of the character and conduct of the president and have ad infinitum shown their downright lack of respect for the truth and reason.
While they continue to criticize the president of the Republic for refusing to make populist remarks which are counterproductive and achieve nothing, they persist in ignoring the achievements emanating from the commitment by the president to pursue talks to resolve conflicts. Africa today is less volatile than it was years before as a result of the negotiated peace agreements, many of which were brokered by the president himself. The people of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Angola, Burundi, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Sudan (with exception of Darfur), etc. now live in peaceful coexistence with each other because warring leaders sat down and talked; because they came to the realisation that a peaceful solution is a lasting solution.
The president of Liberia Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, on her address during the sixth Nelson Mandela annual lecture stated, “But I do believe that a new Africa is unfolding before our eyes. The African Renaissance is now at hand. It is within reach. It is embedded within the honest and seeking minds of the young, the professionals, the activists, the believers in our continent. Difficulties remain, no doubt, trouble spots abound for sure, and many seek to discredit this process, but we have reached the threshold and there is no turning back from the irreversible transformation.”
Madame President continued to convey her gratitude on behalf of the people of Liberia for President Mbeki’s commendable efforts in assisting the Liberians to find peace, “President Mbeki, as then Chairman of the Organization of African Unity, was instrumental in putting Liberia on the road to peace and we thank him and we pray that he will do the same for Zimbabwe.”
“We will also continue to argue that the people of Zimbabwe will have to unite to extricate their country from the economic crisis in which it is immersed, and that we will contribute everything we can to support the realisation of this objective.” Having made this commitment to the world and the naysayers, President Mbeki delivered on his word when both the Zanu-PF and the MDC signed a memorandum of understanding that would pave a way for talks to resolve the political impasse and extricate the country from its economic malaise.
“Some farther afield from us who choose to describe us as a so-called rogue democracy … because we refuse to serve as their subservient klip-gooiers against especially President Robert Mugabe”. It is without doubt that “empty theatrical gestures” and “prancing on the stage” by President Mbeki would not assist the people of Zimbabwe in establishing peace and stability in their land, other than serving self-serving capitalist interests in selling newspapers and hogging headlines.
There are those like the US and the UK who continue to undermine concerted efforts by Africans to resolve their own problems without undue external influences. The US is the biggest culprit for sowing the seed of distrust, fuelling dying flames and blowing them into devastating conflagration of conflicts everywhere, causing devastation and misery to innocent people. Africa is no exception.
“Whatever the difficulties, Africa shall be at peace! However improbable it may sound to the skeptics, Africa will prosper!
Whoever we may be, whatever our immediate interest, however much we carry baggage from our past, however much we have been caught by the fashion of cynicism and loss of faith in the capacity of the people, let us err today and say ‘nothing can stop us now!’”
Like the Roman General Gaius Martius Coriolanus on whose life the Shakespearean tragic hero Coriolanus was based, President Mbeki plays the man he is. He will not allow himself nor will the rest of us pride ourselves to be audience to the president of the Republic being suspended on strings pulled by puppet masters from the US and UK. This is not what the liberation in all its manifestations was about.
What all South Africans need to interrogate in themselves is what could have happened to us all had there been no appetite for talks with the apartheid brutes; had Oliver Tambo left the insurrectionists within the ANC such as Chris Hani and Joe Slovo to their own devices.
While South Africans continue to celebrate their peaceful transition to democracy, their hypocrisy in wishing conflict upon others rears its head with constant and remorseless regularity. We should refrain from preaching dam water to others when we indulge ourselves in Cabernet Sauvignons and Pinot Noirs.
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