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Date: Friday, 06 July 2007
Time: 17:00
Venue: UKZN, Westville Campus Graduate School of Business (GSB)
The Graduate School of Business is next to the Temple , on the north end of the Campus , close to the Reservoir Hills entrance/exit . The event will probably start at 5.15 or shortly thereafter , to allow for those who might get stuck in traffic .
There is some parking outside the GSB , with a larger car park adjacent .
Entrance to this event is free . Hosted by The Centre for Civil Society
BOOK AUTHOR: RONALD SURESH ROBERTS IN COMPANY WITH BHEKI KHUMALO
REVIEWER: Prof. Patrick Bond
60 MIN. FOR AUDIENCE
Confirm attendance before 5 July 2007 seats limited
Xolani Dube - 0823524277
thepride@webmail.co.za
thecampuswitness@webmail.co.za
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Ronald Suresh Roberts
Patrick Bond reviews Ronald Suresh Roberts' Fit to Govern
Unending denialism was on display at the UKZN Westville campus at our booklaunch/debate. Mbeki is not an AIDS denialist – in spite of ‘I’ve never known anyone who died of AIDS’ – or, according to Bheki Khumalo, a Burma liberation denialist, or even a supporter of the Washington Consensus. Aside from wicked fibbing, Suresh and Bheki failed to rebut the vast majority of charges thrown at them and Mbeki, especially by a raucus audience who repeatedly reminded us of reasons for the M&G’s front-page headline yesterday: ‘SA’s TIME BOMB’. At the outset, host Xolani Dube shocked the crowd by revealing that the person who had initially agreed to chair the event had just pulled out, citing fear of being seen as on one side of the society’s huge pro/anti-Mbeki gulf. Suresh then opened on the attack by raising a minor controversy over my temporary refusal to meet AIDS dissident Janine Roberts – which she distorts on her website – and recounted that the last time we dueled, at the UCT Centre for Conflict Resolution last November, I had the advantage of popping up powerpoint slides on a big screen behind him that contradicted his riff, and he was happy there was no laptop around. Bheki Khumalo was predictable. Percy Ngonyama spoke eloquently about presidential and ruling party hypocrisy. Here’s what I read out:
Is Ronald Suresh Roberts’ Fit to Govern fit to defend Mbeki from (mainly) ‘illiberal’ critics of different hues?
We are here tonight to celebrate this work, one of just four book-length treatments of the regime not authored by Mbeki himself. These discussions are overdue so I will take advantage of the rare chance to confront a public defender of Mbekism.
Debate has been stifled, and not, Suresh, by the illiberals. Just last Thursday the Centre for Civil Society hosted the world premiere of the documentary film Mbeki Unauthorised, and nearly 800 people jammed a conference centre to learn why the SABC has prevented them from seeing this film and making up their own minds. It’s a balanced film, yet up to the last minute we were threatened by the SABC who incorrectly claimed ownership and the right to continue their absurd banning order.
Suresh and Bheki, won’t you please send an email to Dali Mpofu tomorrow and insist he join in the spirit of robust political dialogue we are striving for here in this room, and finally show the film to the public?
As for the book, Suresh has positioned himself as a radical intellectual, and unfortunately all the critiques of his book I’ve heard to date – until Percy Ngonyama a few minutes ago - presume he genuinely speaks from the left.
This position, he clarifies, is distinct from those he (and Mbeki) call the ‘ultraleft’: Naomi Klein, John Pilger, John Saul, Alex Callinicos and myself, though tellingly he neglects legions of homegrown, grassroots, shopfloor activists – like Percy - who have made SA the world’s most protest-intense society per capita (nearly 6000 measured by police in 2005, not to mention the record 11 million strike days lost this year).
Against activist concerns that Mbeki mainly uses the state against the ANC low-income base, Suresh’ spurious defense relies upon the ruling party’s ability to win (not earn) votes, which in turn follows the failure – so far - of trade unions to launch a workers’ party, which in turn is part of our ultraleft lament. Suresh’s critique is thus moot.
Here’s a trivial but interesting question from both ultraleftists and illiberals: is Suresh fit to receive R1.4 million for this job from a bank, ABSA, whose nose was browned deep within Pretoria’s National Party bum long before Chris Stals’ notorious Reserve Bank bailout in the early 1990s? (Suresh’s other crony capitalist sponsors are Vodacom, CNA, Siemens and Interactive Africa.)
Notwithstanding the lefty vocabulary, Fit to Govern was a relatively safe gamble for ABSA verligtes - far safer than their financing support for Robert Mugabe, a man whom Suresh would learn far more about from Moeletsi than Thabo Mbeki.
(Moeletsi has revealed his older brother’s fear that revulsion against Mugabe by urban poor/working people of Zimbabwe is comparable to the situation here, hence the need to signal SA trade unionists that it is futile to start an opposition party.)
Demonstrating his anti-worker credentials, Suresh’s last M&G outing, for example, excitedly compared the Congress of SA Trade Unions to a corrupt Venezuelan labour movement allied with US imperialism against Hugo Chavez.
That bit of trickery, denounced by Drew Forrest and others last year, is not made in this book, though Chavez and Cosatu are mischaracterised in other ways.
For example, a chart with SA, Brazil and Venezuela statistics shows only that Suresh tortures the data, until they confess.
Cosatu is criticised mainly because Tony Leon admits labour has been tougher on issues of mutual concern than the Democratic Alliance – but the ANC’s alliance with the DA against unveiling campaign funders is not mentioned.
Indeed if disguising real power relationships is what an Mbeki biography most needs, Suresh is eminently fit to spin.
Thus on the one hand it’s refreshing for Suresh to rubbish Jonathan Oppenheimer’s bold query, ‘What’s wrong with policy capture if it’s good policy?’
On the other, to answer properly would require confronting the cronyism so commonplace in the ANC that treasurer-general Mendi Msimang has just defended receipt of Brett Kebble’s stolen spoils: R3,5 million in bribes ‘were for value received’ in ‘indirect benefits’.
Speaking of reactionary alliances, characteristically, Suresh does not trouble to explain how, if Mbeki was opposed to the Iraq War, he stood by in early 2003 while Denel sold R1.4 billion worth of weaponry to the British army and US Marines.
At Mbeki’s explicit urging, Suresh regurgitates some excellent Frantz Fanon, but highlights the anti-colonial psychological project rather than dwelling upon Fanon’s materialist attack on the neocolonial collaborator (in The Wretched of the Earth chapter on Pitfalls of National Consciousness), a role Mbeki plays so well on the stage of reality.
Wasn’t it Mbeki who declared in 2002, after joining the G8 meeting in Canada, that his visit ‘signifies the end of the epoch of colonialism and neocolonialism’?
Suresh spins left instead. He opens a chapter on ‘Muscular Liberalism’, with smoke and mirrors: ‘Mbeki’s robust engagements with companies such as Anglo American reflect the ANC’s determination to protect democracy from a history of corporate oligarchy’.
Robust? Come off it Suresh, the decision eight years ago to let Anglo and DeBeers (and several other huge companies) flee the Johannesburg Stock Exchange with apartheid-era loot intact – no wealth tax or reparations demands (in spite of Jubilee campaigning) – reveals Mbeki’s flacid neoliberalism.
Suresh is also silent on pro-corporate white-elephant spending for Coega, Gautrain, 2010 stadia, Pebble Bed nukes, unneeded Lesotho dams, as well as on the municipal services-disconnection epidemic.
As for Mbeki’s latent anti-capitalist posturing, the best Roberts can do is report on minor jousting between Christine Qunta and John Myburgh within the commission studying the 2001 currency collapse. Roberts terms Mbeki’s do-nothing reaction ‘a brilliant deployment of “moral suasion”’ that ‘stabilised the rand in 2002’.
No, not true, it rose dramatically, as expected after falling to R13.8/US$. Another collapse last year left South Africa the world’s worst-performing major currency. Further financial deregulation, risk of capital flight and hence continuing currency volatility – mitigated only by still absurdly high interest rates (since exchange controls are too interventionist for this crew) - remain Mbeki’s policy, though you would not know it from Roberts’ ersatz account.
There are countless other examples of policy distortion. The 1998 National Water Act, which Roberts claims ‘rolled back private rights in water’ (and which he helped draft as an advisor to Kader Asmal), could have been a case in point.
Since then, in part because of interminably slow land reform, state power to move bulk water resources is mainly helping AngloPlats drain Limpopo, while elsewhere, water commercialisation caused a cholera epidemic and untold numbers of affordability-related disconnections – at last count, 275 000 households were victimised in 2003, government has conceded – at a time inadequate water access unnecessarily kills thousands of South Africans, especially children.
Emblematically, a vignette of the Constitutional Court’s opening on March 21, 2004 has Mbeki serving as Chief Justice Arthur Chaskalson’s valet – the robing signified executive respect for the judiciary – but there’s no mention of another drama over apparel that played out a few meters away.
On the sidewalks outside the ConCourt building, police commemorated Human Rights Day by arresting more than fifty people wearing red (even bystanders), as the Anti-Privatisation Forum’s nonviolent march on the court demanding constitutional water rights – against Johannesburg Water practices designed by the Paris-based Suez company – was banned.
Not a word about this incident or other repressive tendencies Mbeki has unleashed, reflecting what insiders say is the ANC’s ‘Zanufication’ process.
Still, a book-length defense of Mbekism is long overdue, after false starts by Alan Hirsch on economics, Joel Netshitenzhe on social policy and Anthony Brink on AIDS denialism.
Perhaps because they’re not so compelling, Suresh barely cites work by the former two. And in offering a half-baked defense of Mbeki’s slow defeat by the Treatment Action Campaign, Suresh slams Brink as an unscrupulous self-promoter - although six months ago he raved about how ‘very important’ Brink’s work is, according to the website of South Africa’s leading denialist. (Shades of his Gordimer reversal. Thabo Mbeki, watch your back with this one.)
Just a word, quickly, on Suresh’s strange new argument that our left critique is ruthless against the ‘Washington Consensus’ of economics, but not against what you call the Washington Consensus of AIDS drugs. Suresh, this is a point you are profoundly wrong about, and that is terribly important given how many lives are at stake. The Washington Consensus ranges from US AID and Pepfar to the World Bank, where Paul Wolfowitz’s rightwing appointees were recently caught retracting funds for women’s reproductive education. That posture favours Northern-supplied AIDS drugs, patented and highly profitable, when an abstinence-based HIV prevention programme (invariably) fails.
In contrast, the progressive position is promotion of Southern-supplied medicines (from Brazil, India, Thailand and now finally South Africa), and on a generic basis, and supplied free as a human right, with HIV prevention much more broadly understood than abstinence. The contrast is huge and your mangling of this speaks volumes about your comprehension of very basic struggles underway in this society.
Suresh, your book is as unfit to read as Brink’s raves, as it mainly amounts to sophistry.
Mbeki deserves better, and indeed Suresh, you can do better.
But next time, not so close to the president’s rear end, not so blind to the realities of subimperialism, and not so well paid as to become complacent to the hard lives faced by the majority of South Africans thanks to Mbekism. Otherwise comrade Suresh, you risk being remembered, mainly, as South Africa’s answer to Jonathan Moyo.
Fit to Govern: the Native Intelligence of Thabo Mbeki
By Percy Ngonyama 10 July 2007
Percy Ngonyama
On the Broederbond-style decision of the bureaucrats at the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) not to broadcast what has become popularly known as "the film the SABC does not want you to see"- Mbeki Unauthorised! , International Federation of Journalists General Secretary, Aidan White commented in May 2006, "The public have been denied the opportunity to see an independent and professional portrait of their president and denied the opportunity to make up their own minds." A year later, the public broadcaster continues its 'hide and seek'; and is never short of excuses why the documentary cannot be aired.
In the backdrop of such methods of censorship, reminiscent of the apartheid-era; and well orchestrated manoeuvres to prevent; and limit
independent public discourse and analysis on the personality and policies of the country's Head of State, the debate that has been elicited by Ronald Suresh Roberts' much-talked about Fit to Govern: the Native Intelligence of Thabo Mbeki, which he describes as a "Book about President Thabo Mbeki and his intellectual traditions", should be applauded. Much like William Mervin Gumede's 2005 Thabo Mbeki and the Battle for the Soul of the ANC' , and Patrick Bond's Talk Left Walk Right: South Africa's Frustrated Global Reforms (2004), the book, in spite of the avowedly pro-government/Mbeki stance, has helped fuel the extremely essential public, media and scholarly discussion on 'South Africa's number one citizen', his government's policies and presidency in general.
However, there are some serious shortcomings with the book. While Roberts insists that his book is a genuine portrayal of the often 'misunderstood' Mbeki, in addition to the many deliberate omissions and silences, it is
largely premised on the widespread misperception that Mbeki is an
'anti-imperial' 'Africanist' victim of the white owned 'illiberal' press
and white supremacists that, annoyingly, continue in the age old racist
tradition to question the 'native's ability' to govern, and perform other
tasks of authority. This, and the shrewd, in the context of South Africa's
recent history of institutionalised racism, Mugabe-style tactic, very
adored by Mbeki and his many hangers on and sycophants in the government and at Luthuli House, of dismissing critics of the government and of Mbeki as 'racist', or as agents of imperialists/neo-colonialists, are the author's main points of departure.
Furthermore, the failure to fully comprehend the contradictory and
hypocritical nature of Mbeki has robbed the author of the opportunity to
understand some of the main reasons Mbeki appears to be 'enigmatic', a
charge Roberts vehemently refutes. "Mbeki is no 'Enigma.' People who call
him that are using mysticism to evade important debates." Roberts tries
very hard to deny that Mbeki is an Aids denialist/dissident, and that
his 'silent diplomacy' on Zimbabwe has been ineffective. "Thabo Mbeki",
he contests, "is not now, nor has he ever been, an AIDS dissident." But
Mbeki has been quoted as saying "Personally, I don't know anybody who has
died of Aids", consequently denying knowing Parks Mankahlana, and Nelson
Mandela and Mangosuthu Buthelezi, whose children died as a result of the
pandemic. He has also questioned if it makes sense to conclude that a
'virus can cause a syndrome.' It is such extraordinary statements that
have made him famous, the world-over, for all the wrong reasons.
Roberts protests that, amongst other things, Mbeki's 'anti racism'
messages are often misinterpreted as 'obsession with race.' However, the
evidence, provided in the form of speeches and writings to corroborate
this claim, proves the contrary: a president highly obsessed with race.
There are quite a few other similar instances in the book where Roberts,
unwittingly, provides one with the ammunition with which to "kick his
Mbeki's ass licking ass." Mbeki's tactic of 'hiding behind the shield of
racism', through the shrewd use of sensitive terms, such as 'Nigger' and
'Kaffir' in his writings, a method Roberts also employs, to demonstrate
the extent of 'the scourge of racism within our society', is, as in the
case of psychopathic Mugabe, solely intended to divert people's attention
from the real issues affecting this country, and the sad reality that
Mbeki's African National Congress (ANC) has sold out by adopting
neo-liberalism, which, ironically has impacted negatively on the lives of
poor black people. It is mainly for such reasons that Roberts' latest
contribution towards 'pro-Mbeki' propaganda, characterised by his vast
ignorance of what James Petras calls the 'The Imperial System: Hierarchy,
Networks and Clients', and South Africa and Mbeki's collusion in this
system, to the detriment of the natives of the world, formulated with full
cooperation of the presidency, should be countered with the same amount of zeal and enthusiasm as that expressed by its proponents. Attempting to deny that South Africa is a neo-liberal state amounts to the worst kind of denialism. Rather let us debate some of the 'justifications' provided for the neo-liberal 'development' path the ANC has taken.
Methodologically, the book's credibility is put under serious doubt. In
the narrative, Roberts repeatedly quotes Mbeki to back up claims that are
made about the very Mbeki. To emphasise the presumed 'anti imperialist',
'pro poor', nature of Mbeki, mainly his 'words', in the form of speeches
and writings, including his weekly online letters, and not his 'actions',
are used as proof. Mainly because Mbeki's 'words' are continuously refuted
by his 'actions', as a result, the narrative is also as contradictory and
smacks of hypocrisy as its subject matter. The abundant corporate funding,
including a significant grant from ABSA Bank, does not only remain a huge
controversy, but also raises some serious questions. ABSA bank is now part
of Barclays Group. Barclays Bank's financial gains from injustices, widely
gone unpunished, that have befallen the natives of Africa, from slavery to
apartheid, are well documented. Together with other multinational
corporations, the bank is currently facing a law suite in the United
States Court of Appeal by the 'native' victims of apartheid. Not only does
the self styled 'native mouthpiece' see nothing wrong with this, but he
also omits from the narrative that the neo-liberal government of Thabo
Mbeki, the supposed 'Native' 'spokesperson', is thwarting these justified
attempts at long denied justice on grounds that they are detrimental to
foreign investment. This signals a U-turn from the ANC's statement made
in 1989 following foreign banks' rescue of the apartheid regime during the
'debt moratorium crisis' of the 1980s. "When the time comes", said the ANC
in a statement in the Cape Times, "the South African people will not be
unmindful of the role of banks in making profit out of the misery of our
people." It is due to such abrupt departures from statements made during
the struggle, that most progressive people now see the ANC as having 'sold
out.'
Yes, such clear collaboration with imperial forces does not only smack of
'compradorist' behaviour, much despised by critics of 'nationalist' petty
bourgeois politicians, including Frantz Fanon, but also acts to dispute
Roberts' claims that Mbeki is 'anti imperialist.' Strangely, Roberts,
whether ignorantly or intentionally with the aim to further confuse the
unsuspecting public, describes Mbeki as Fanonist in his orientation; and
selectively uses Fanon's 'anti colonial/anti imperialist' writings to
support his claims. However, the reality is that further reading of Fanon
vividly reveals his strong views and dislike of the bourgeoisie and the
comprador bourgeoisie whom he, correctly, identifies as the enemy of the
peasants and other marginalised groups.
"In spite of his frequently honest conduct", says Fanon of the likes of
Mbeki in The Wretched of the Earth: The Pitfalls of National
Consciousness , "the leader as seen objectively is the fierce defender of
these interests, today combined, of the national bourgeoisie and the
ex-colonial companies." "During the struggle for liberation", Fanon
continues, "the leader awakened the people and promised them a forward
march, heroic and unmitigated. Today, he uses every means to put them to
sleep, and three or four times a year asks them to remember the colonial
period and to look back on the long way they have come since then." This
is precisely what has characterised Mbeki's presidency. During 'national
events' the public is forever reminded of life during apartheid and
colonialism. Those who complain of the ongoing injustice in the 'new South
Africa' are quickly dismissed as apartheid sympathisers. To a very large
extent, Roberts book also seeks to perpetuate this new 'defence
mechanism.'
Making William Gumede's book, described by Roberts as "an assault upon
Mbeki", more interesting was that, unlike Fit to Govern ; it dared expose
Mbeki's paranoia, manipulative attitude, and the embarrassing 'unknown'
side of South Africa's Commander-in-Chief, some of the things that the
bosses at the SABC, with the approval of the presidency, want to conceal
from the public, particularly, in the months leading up to the ANC's
national conference in Limpopo where Mbeki is expected to contest the
position of president. While labelling Gumede an 'unpatriotic' "national
embarrassment", Roberts conveniently ignores to deal with the
'controversial' circumstances, beautifully analysed by Gumede, surrounding
"Mbeki's Path to Power."
Throughout the book, the extremely racist Cecil John Rhodes, and his role in the British Empire 's 'bloody' colonial project in Southern Africa are mentioned. To demonstrate that white stereotypes about the 'Native's ability to govern' have a long history, Rhodes is quoted as saying "There are those who wish to endow the native at once with the privileges it has taken the European eighteen hundred years to acquire [but] the natives is to be treated as a child and denied the franchise." That the name of Rhodes is now used alongside that of Nelson Mandela in what is known as 'The Mandela Rhodes Foundation' has been omitted. How about the fact that, in what is a perfect example of nationalist rulers 'walking straight into the shoes of former colonisers/oppressors'; one of Mbeki's official residence, in Rodebosch, once belonged to Rhodes?
Moreover, determined to achieve the ambitious 6% annual growth rate between 2010 and 2014, as part of the Accelerated and Shared Growth IInitiative of South Africa (asgiSA), in what smacks of sub-imperialism, the Mbeki led government has paved the way for the likes of De Beers, now with a Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) element, a mining company founded by Rhodes on the back of the sweat and blood of native mineworkers, and other corporations, to export their exploitation of cheap 'native labour' to other parts of the continent. With Mbeki's own admission, it is the corporates, many of whom openly conducted business with the apartheid regime, to the detriment of the black majority, that have benefited handsomely from the past thirteen years of 'democracy.'
How is this possible under a government led by a supposedly
'anti-imperialist' intelligent native? Is it also naïve to ask if Mbeki
is such a 'champion' for native rights and well being, as Roberts wants us
to believe, why is it that he saw nothing wrong with recently being
awarded a knighthood by the British Monarchy, an institution whose crimes
against the natives of Africa is well documented? Is South Africa's
loyalty to neo-colonial institutions such as the British Commonwealth not
a sign of endorsement of the very 'Mother-child' relationship between
colonisers and the formerly colonised that Roberts speak so strongly about
in the chapter entitled 'Mother country'? This exposes the same kind of
double standards as those displayed by Robert Mugabe. To many black
people, he is this 'anti-imperial' 'Africanist' who has finally managed to
'teach the white man a lesson'. Strangely, however, in the midst of his
anti imperial/British rhetoric, he boasts a knighthood bestowed on him in
1994 during his 'happier times' with the British Crown.
So, when Sunday Times editor Mondli Makhanya who, together with others, is severely vilified in 'Massa day done': Mbeki's new black critics', is
labelled a "colonial creature" by Roberts, perhaps the question should be who is more deserving of this description? Whose actions between Mondli and Mbeki have done more to advance neo-colonialism and the interests of foreign capital? After all, as the old saying goes 'Actions speak louder than words." The persistent 'dissing' of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher is strange, given Mbeki's not so easy to conceal staunch belief in Thatcherite economic policies, characterised by the commodification of every aspect of people's life accompanied by austerity measures. And since Roberts admits to have read John Pilger's 'Apartheid Did not Die' which appears in Freedom Next Time, he should be aware that at the unveiling of the 'non-negotiable' market friendly Growth, Employment and Redistribution (Gear) macro-economic programme, his 'hero'
defiantly declared to critics "Just call me a Thatcherite."
While Roberts disputes valid claims that Mbeki and his government's
policies are 'pro-market', hence 'anti-poor', it is not so hard to see
that Mbeki, who, in accordance with his overall 'Talk left Walk Right'
attitude continues claiming his government's fictional commitment to the
Freedom Charter and the Reconstruction and Development Programme, has
become nothing but an 'errand boy' for those who own the means of
production. On behalf of the rich, ironically, mainly white, Mbeki travels
the world-over, at the expense of the taxpayer, looking for new markets to
sell the surplus produced at a huge expense to exploited, mainly 'native'
workers. By concurring with the ANC's National Executive Committee
Discussion document, addressed to the left within the Tripartite Alliance,
published in Umrabulo of May 2000 that "The democratic state therefore
represents neither the dictatorship of the proletariat, nor the
dictatorship of the bourgeoisie", Roberts, like the now bourgeoisified
leadership of the ANC, displays his equally serious misreading of the
current South African situation, and ignorance of Marxist interpretations,
which he purports to have a command of. According to Marx, a bourgeois
state, such as South Africa, "being a system of class rule, amounts to a
[permanent] dictatorship of the bourgeoisie."
Many of Mbeki's statements, from during the times of exile in the petty
bourgeois surroundings of London , to his weekly online letters, are
quoted to demonstrate his hatred of racism. Of particular interest is his
March 16-23, posted on the eve of Human Rights Day on the ANC website,
entitled 'Freedom from racism- a fundamental human rights' in which he
shrewdly uses the exceptionally sensitive 'K' word to make his claims
about racism being South Africa's 'number one enemy', and an obstacle to
people accessing their human rights. While most poor people might not be
aware, but the main reason they are denied their Constitutionally
guaranteed human rights is because of the hegemonic neo-liberal capitalist
system of Mbeki's government.
By crying racism, are Mbeki, and his praise singers, including Roberts,
suggesting that the hundreds of poor black students financially excluded
from tertiary institutions, year in and year out, suffer such fate because
of the colour of their skin? Are the many people who have had their water,
electrify and other services terminated because of non-affordability
victims of the scourge of the "demon" of racism that "permeates so much of
the fabric of our society"? Is it the evil spirit of racism which Mbeki
feels "must be exorcised" that has seen more than 40 percent- using the
broad definition of unemployment- very high compared to other medium
income economies- of the country's economically active go without jobs?
Since it is doubtful that Mbeki has, personally, suffered serious racism
in recent times, clearly, his statements on racism are intended to further
'divide and rule' the masses, and confuse them on their real enemy: the
ruling class, the real enemy of the people since the emergence of class
societies. South Africans, black and white, need to wake up to the new
kind of 'apartheid', perpetuated by Mbeki's conservative economic
policies, engulfing this country which, unlike in the past, is not based
on race, but class. Roberts' book may deny it, but Mbeki, by occupying a
prominent position in the ranks of the international ruling class,
responsible for all the suffering of the poor and wars, including, the
Iraqi war which Roberts widely makes reference to in, amongst other
things, arguing against alleged proponents of 'regime change' in Zimbabwe,
is just as culpable.
He makes very valid assertions, nonetheless, regarding the many
contradictions within the 'international community' on the Zimbabwe issue.
Very true, while not condoning Mugabe's 'crimes' against humanity, they
look like 'child's play' when compared to what Bush and Dick Cheney's oil
war is doing to innocent Iraqis. However, it is grossly misleading to
equate criticism of the government and Mbeki's so-called 'quite diplomacy'
policy on Zimbabwe to calls for 'regime change': George Bush/Tony Blair
style. A large majority of South Africans has been insulted by peculiar
statements, such as "there are no human rights abuses in Zimbabwe"
attributed to our politicians, and collusion, at the expense of the
taxpayer, in Mugabe's 'election thievery' by certifying ' as 'legitimate'
and 'free and fair' elections that certainly do not qualify as such. It is
'pure lies' to argue, as Mugabe himself continues to, that all those that
slam his government are either racist, imperialists, if white, or agents
of imperialists, if black, determined to undermine a 'native freedom
fighter', simply because, it is mainly black people that are facing
starvation and suffering in Zimbabwe. It is also very naïve not to realise
that Mugabe's 'land reform' programme, identified, wrongly so, by Roberts,
as what has triggered Zimbabwe's socio-economic woes, is an attempt to
obscure people's view away from the patronage, corruption, nepotism,
cronyism that have been the major characteristics of Zanu PF's rule for
the past twenty seven years, the root cause for most of the economic
problems currently affecting that country north of the Limpopo.
Endless references to the ANC's parliamentary majority, also beloved by
the many arrogant ANC officials, are intended to highlight that the
masses, regardless of the many 'detractors' which include prominent
members of the Global Justice Movement, have not lost faith in the ANC.
"At the 2004 victory celebrations at the Sandton Convention Centre, Mbeki
specifically pointed out that the voters had rebuffed the so-called
'social movements' that had styled themselves as the authentic voice of
black mass grievance." Unsurprisingly, not mentioned in this quote by
South Africa's 'Denialist-in-Chief' is the depressing fact that since the
first democratic election in 1994, the number of voters, in real terms,
has not stopped shrinking (less than 48% of the registered 22 million
voters cast their vote in the 2006 local government elections. Of these,
less than 11 million voted ANC), and this, together with the many strikes,
including the recent protracted public service sector industrial action,
and service delivery protests, signal high levels of discontent. And by
denying this, our complacent rulers are losing out on the opportunity to
find out the root causes of this unhappiness. Should the ANC not be asking
why the South African electorate is so disillusioned with the electoral
process, only thirteen years since the first democratic election?
It is such denialism, largely informed by neo-liberal economic policies,
that has characterised the government's response to the HIV/AIDS and
unemployment time bombs facing this country. There seems to be an absurd believe that by denying the problem, it will go away. Unfortunately, as we have seen with HIV and unemployment, this only stands to compound the
crisis. Strangely, in Fit to Govern, while describing all those that have
called for the roll out of the life-prolonging Anti drugs (ARVs) as 'Aids
drug fundamentalists', including the entire Treatment Action Campaign
(TAC), Zachie Achmat and Edwin Cameroon, who are in cohort with
pharmaceutical companies, Roberts, desperately attempts to dispute claims
that Mbeki has questioned the link between HIV and Aids. If one considers
that the TAC has mainly demanded the import of cheap generic versions of
Aids drugs, allegations, also supported by 'multi vitamin' proponent Dr.
Mathius Rath, that the TAC is nothing but a 'front' for the likes of
GlaxoSmithKline, are hence nonsensical. And, in view of the TAC's valuable
contribution to the struggle for affordable HIV/AIDS treatment, these
spurious allegations should be treated with the contempt they deserve.
While Roberts, personally, is a very nice person with a remarkable sense
of humour, Fit to Govern is seriously flawed, theoretically,
methodologically and otherwise. Mbeki is no 'victim' of the 'imperialist'
press, on the contrary the corporate owned media is in full agreement,
with Mbeki's pro business/anti poor neo-liberal project. Massive
expenditure of public funds in multi-billion dollar mega projects has been
sanctioned by the media as good for the 'booming' economy. Only an
extremely ignorant person or a liar would deny that Mbeki, one of the
ruling class' most trusted 'lieutenants', and the media, ruling class
property, share a common agenda: preserving the current unjust status quo. As sad as it is, but it would be understandable if the 'pro Mbeki'
Roberts's intentions are to mislead. It would be very worrying if his conclusions were made out of ignorance. The intellectual bankruptcy of some of the people in Mbeki's cabinet acts to corroborate Gumede's valid assertions, denied by Roberts, of technocratic Mbeki's preference for sycophantic 'Yes-Men and Yes-Women.'
In the Preface, he mentions the unrestricted access he had to very senior
people in the presidency, but, bizarrely, in the narrative, he hardly
makes use of what they think of the 'Chief'. Instead, mostly, Mbeki's own
writings and statements are used to back up what is stated about him. In
view of this, and the many other flaws, it would be justifiable to assume
that the entire project was rushed through as a desperate attempt to
'polish' Mbeki's image in the months leading up to the national conference
in December. And, yes, as Patrick Bond pointed out to Roberts at a recent
Durban launch of the latter's book hosted by the University of
KwaZulu-Natal 's Graduate School of Business, "Mbeki deserves better, and
Suresh can do better." Certainly, he has not done his 'homework' and
should, for the next edition, seriously consider interviewing social
movements activists and other left (outside the alliance) critics of
Mbeki.
On a positive departure note, though, the much-awaited Gumede's second edition of Thabo Mbeki and the Battle for the Soul of the ANC is coming out in September this year. Like the first edition, and Roberts' book, it should be expected to generate just as vigorous a debate. Indeed, in spite of covert operations by the likes of the kowtowing management of the SABC,
deepening and broadening the debate around the president and his policies is extremely critical.
Book Launch: Fit to Govern: The Native Intelligence of Thabo Mbeki
Ngonyama is a full time post-graduate student with the Department of Historical and Internet Studies at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) and a Durban based activist. As respondents, together with academic activist, Patrick Bond, Ngonyama recently participated in a public discussion of Fit to Govern hosted by the UKZN's Graduate School of Business, with the author Ronald Suresh Roberts and former presidential spokesperson Bheki Khumalo as discussants.
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