Dinner at the club with the Zulu Mr Everyman

22 April 2009

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As Jacob Zuma readies himself for the challenge of governing South Africa, Alec Russell recalls his encounters with the ANC leader: a politician who plays the part of the revivalist preacher and speaks the language of reconciliation but remains an unsettling enigma

When I returned to the Rand Club last week for the first time since the Zuma dinner to talk about international views of South Africa, I was rightly asked whether it was not wiser to trust in politicians’ actions rather than words. It was, for example, always assumed that South Africa’s controversial foreign policy of recent years — in particular its refusal to criticise Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe — was an Mbeki-ite foible. But earlier this month South Africa was ridiculed when it bowed to pressure from Beijing and refused to give a visa to the Dalai Lama, an initiative which one adviser told me came straight from Mr Zuma.

While Mr Mbeki’s pseudo-intellectualism led South Africa down several blind alleys, there is now a countervailing anti-intellect-ual drive in the party. This could prove equally if not more destructive to South Africa’s institutions than the creeping interventions of the Mbeki years, when the ANC’s policy of ‘deploying cadres’ undermined the independence of several state institutions.

The more hysterical whites seize on Mr Zuma’s polygamy to suggest he will be a caricature African leader. That is wrong. There is, conversely, even a chance he could be a Ronald Reagan figure, and allow the country a breathing space while it recovers from the wrenching questions of the Mbeki years. And yet a more credible scenario is of a vacuum as he struggles to assert his authority and as the ANC further corrodes. For even if he is genuine when he says he wants to restore the ANC idealism of the past, given his record, will people heed him? As the Dalai Lama told me earlier this month, too many of South Africa’s leaders have become more focused on money and power than principle, a trend that has debilitated liberation movements over the years.

‘Bra’ (Brother) Bricks, a burly township activist who was tortured and left for dead by the apartheid security forces, told me that the man who sang ‘Bring me my machine-gun’ will end up on the dustbin of history. Anyone who cares about South Africa and, indeed, Africa has to hope he is wrong.

Alec Russell is world affairs editor of the Financial Times. His new book After Mandela: the battle for the Soul of South Africa is published by Hutchinson.

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charlie

April 24th, 2009 1:13pm Report this comment

Thabo Mbeki was disastrous for South Africa. He was an autocratic racist president, who espoused the African renaissance. An admirable goal, which I support - but you can't have a renaissance without the proper skills, and without the understanding that institutions are more important than leaders (the two fault lines on which Africa falls).

Under Mbeki skin colour yet again became more important than ability, and his excluding white South Africans from the debate and his denial of the impact of crime caused up to three million whites to leave South Africa, a tragedy. Even worse, he changed the structure of government to one of centralised patronage. Local authorities ceased to be accountable to their constituents and only looked to Luthuli House. Corruption and incompetence soared.

We shall just have to see how Mr Zuma pans out. At the moment, anyone is better than Mbeki. But the most important thing of all, is for ordinary South Africans to learn that democracy works by removing votes from bad government: something that Africans still don't get.

Quackers

April 24th, 2009 2:18pm Report this comment

Mister "Lethu Mshini Wami" Zuma remains ( for the simplistic, 'take everything at face-value' members ) something of an enigma.

For the more realistic and African worldly-wise, he is a growing and dangerous threat to the stability of the entire continent.

Mister Zuma believes in only one thing - himself. Anyone in his immediate vicinity had better understand this PDQ or start making arrangements for the hereafter.

To postulate he could be another Reagan does Ronald a grave injustice. Reagan had not a single mailicious bone in his body.

I hope and pray that my misgivings prove wrong - for the sake of a great country.

"Almost" anything is better than the great 'intellectual' ditherings of Mbeki, but Zuma ??

Andreas

April 28th, 2009 5:59pm Report this comment

Is there any reason to think Zuma won't be another Wabenzi leading South Africa down the path their neighbours slightly to the north already have walked?

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