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G21 AFRICA - THE SOUL OF THE ANC. MPHUTHUMI NTABENI reviews a consideration of the internal workings of the African National Congress (ANC)East London, SOUTH AFRICA - Thabo Mbeki And The Battle For The Soul Of The ANC by William Mervin Gumede is book with high aspirations. The author tells us it is a political narrative of our (South African) times, and not a conventional biography. South African critics have hailed it as the first serious effort to evaluate president Mbeki's impact on South African politics. As a summary of the ruling party, the ANC (African National Congress's) politics, and the sum of post-apartheid power struggle, the book is indispensable.
Mphuthumi Ntabeni I'm a child of my age, in the sense that I love the street-fight and soapbox side of political life. Unfortunately no one will have any real means of evaluating Gumede's allegations and speculations about what he paints as Mbeki's backdoor, ruthless path to power - owing to the invidious practise in his research of giving us an inside view of ANC politics while hiding the identities of his sources. So I shall give that section of the book a regrettable miss.
In post-apartheid politics the ANC gained advantage over other black parties, like PAC (Pan African Congress) who've remained a static relic of pan africanism, by modernising its communicating capacities and polishing its political engine to fit modern aspirations. It took competent advantage of a decaying political stage that reflected the collapse of both left and right politics along the lines of Labour Party in England today.
The major part of Gumede's book is about the inside power struggles of Mbeki within the ANC; the impact his economic policies had in the country, the continent and the global world. Gumede starts by contrasting Mbeki's ruling style with that of the founding fathers of the ANC. The founding fathers planted the roots of organisational culture in an espousal of internal democracy, the right to dissent, a highly consultative style of leadership, adherence to rules and norms set out in the constitution, and regular elections.
Gumede is of the opinion that Mbeki betrays the ruling style of the founding fathers of the ANC from that which was developed in years of exiles where a culture of internal democracy was non-existent, consultation was rare and dissent was not tolerated. Indeed this is the growing opinion within the Tripartite Alliance and within the country at large, including the traditional right-liberal klipgooiers (stone-throwers).?
Gumede's book has been promoted in the press as a vitriolic character deracination of Mbeki that smacks of liberal propaganda. I didn't find that at all, in fact I'm of the opinion that the book is a very balanced constructive criticism of Mbeki's tenure in government. Gumede's ulterior motive, if he has any, is to legitimise the grievances of the poor. He has, as many South Africans, a problem with the
[g]overnment's current premise, that growth must be achieved before redistribution... The two should be perused in tandem.The flapping about with economic policies designed to benefit the poor majority, like RDP Reconstruction and Development Program), for the neo-liberal eye-catching initiatives of corporate vested interests of GEAR is what irked the majority of people about Mbeki's economic vision. Gumede quotes Joel Netshitenzhe, the spoke-person of government policy:
GEAR was a structural adjustment policy, self-imposed, to stabilise the macroeconomic situation [to deal with] the realities of an unmanageable budget deficit, high interest rates and weak local and foreign investor confidence.Cui bono? That's the question. At what expense?
The masses, who suffered under apartheid, are again paying the price of gut-wrenching poverty again. As if that's not enough, almost all envisaged gains of GEAR failed, prompting Mbeki to say in 1998 (Gumede quotes him):
The free market path of development... has failed to live up to the expectations of the people of the south. Gumede goes on to say... the government erred on the side of caution in choosing financial stabilisation over economic transformation. For the government, the threat of short-term financial instability loomed larger than any risk of social or political instability...
Unfortunately the things have now changed, changed utterly!
Gumede opens chapter 5, entitled "Economics For the Poor", by quoting the leader of India's 'Untouchables', BR Ambedkar, in 1949, which ends with these words: How long shall we continue to live this life of contradiction? How long shall will continue to deny equality in our social and economic life? If we continue to deny it for long, we do so only by putting our political democracy in peril.
What we need to understand is that no country has ever achieved economic success by relying on outside help. The opposite is true. Many countries, especially African, have embarked on a road to ruin because their economic production was controlled by outsiders with the help of corrupt local politicians. Secondly, South Africa's failure is not in economic policy or incapacity; but rather unfair distribution of resources.
The ANC government has not been as effective as it could be to lever business capacity and to use state power to achieve its objectives of reducing poverty, unemployment, underdevelopment and inequality in partnership with the private sector... Mbeki argues that fiscal prudence since 1994 allowed the ANC to get ready to embark on bolder wealth redistribution, but initial offerings are far too timid. Lack of nerve is our government's problem then.?
??The ANC has always operated with a strong pragmatic streak, freely adapting its politics to the needs of the times and the majority; resulting in pick-and-mix policies. The problem, Gumede hammers this, is that Mbeki's economic policies have been designed to succour big business and foreign investment at the expense of the people. As the result the appeal of Mbeki now is largely among [those in] the business world, which naturally translates to whites in our country since the capital is still largely in the hands of white people.
Perhaps it is unfair to put the blame solely on Mbeki, since the ANC at large has always been very much a product of its times. The truth is sad and tragic. Gumede puts it thus:
Mbeki has been unable to persuade business that it is in their interest to contribute to positive change, that rampart poverty and inequality could be the downfall of South Africa's market-friendly economy. He has failed to achieve a shared understanding of the nature of social and economic problems inherited from the apartheid government... In Malaysia, the local business community only started taking transformation seriously when angry mobs pored onto the streets to demand their slice of the pie. One of Mbeki's biggest challenges is to get business on board before similar mass action erupts, as it almost certainly will if the stark inequalities persist.The Third Way politics, which Mbeki espouses, is about embracing and reconciling opposites, bringing together concepts such as state and market, equality and diversity, rights and responsibility, which had previously been heralded by different political camps. The major opposition party, the DA (Democratic Party), which is mostly white, does not help things either with its residual racist bigotry positioning of wishing to defend white pri vilege in everything; and automatic equation of the ANC's political dominance to rampart corruption. The rest of the opposition parties are either caught up in fatal power struggles or spiralling into oblivion with the exception of the newly formed ID (Independent Democrats) that is still too vague to attract attention.?
Gumede is of the opinion that
[r]ace and class present a potential fault line in South Africa's future politics. He book goes into journalistic detail about other issues surrounding Mbeki's presidency, like AIDS, Zimbabwe, NEPAD, BEE, trade unions and the rise from being ANC's conveyor belt status quo. There's also the issue of [t]he chief defect of South African's proportional electoral system... [of voters having] no say in the who goes to parliament, only what parties they represent. Members of National Assembly are appointed, not elected, and their suitability is adjudged by the party bosses rather than the people in whose interests they are supposed to act.??Gumede's book exposes [the opinion that] Thabo Mbeki's political personality as a control freak who cares only about power and his own reputation creates a failing economic vision, which on the scale of things is rather harsh. It is said that the sign of a great leader is someone who can reject intimacy without impairing affection. Mbeki is not an intimate personality, and has injured a lot of personalities on his climb up the greasy political pole. He has, to the chagrin of radical socialists, turned the ANC into "a liberal social democratic party and a custodian of liberal values... Mbeki's nationalism seeks to endow South Africa with a sense of grand historical necessity - like Nehru impressing upon Indians the importance of their country in the wider world."
?In the end the book left me with a feeling that the political personality of Thabo Mbeki is too complex a matter for a journalistic temperament of Gumede. It needs a scholarly attention. It also needs what our journalistic and political tradition lacks, an unscripted exchange of real ideas. Rumours are ripe that Ronald Suresh Roberts, the competent author of Nadine Gordimer's biography, No Cold Kitchen, is busy with Thabo Mbeki's biography. If so we wait in bated breaths for it.
What's wonderful about Gumede is his lack of hysterical pitch and an independent mind in writing about controversial issues. But he tends to be too repetitive, which betrays haste in construction. Gumede also has a tendency of being logorrhoeic; too much explanation confuses. There's a general quality of high political gossip and clubfooted sophomoric observations about the book in its weak moments. Though he is well-read, one finds Gumede a little famished of original thought with a tendency for reaching for hyperbole instead of a microscope. He gives you the feeling that most of his ideas are extracts from academic papers sometimes. At other times, he assists rumour by taking quotations out of context.
There's also the problem of plagiarism that has been alleged against Gumede in the South African print media. The only credible quoted evidence I read of this accusation were the two top paragraphs in page 35 of Gumed's book. Were I Gumede it would not be too difficult to dismiss such accusations, quoting the venerable company of Chaucer drawing from the well of Boccaccio, Shakespeare from that of Ben Johnson, DH Lawrence from his contemporaries in such things. All in all Thabo Mbeki And The Battle For The Soul Of The ANC is an indispensable book for contemporary South African politics.
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