• Tweet

HOWZIT COM: Thabo Mbeki sharing a joke with Julius Malema during the ANC's centenery celebrations in Bloemfontein earlier this month. Photo: SIMPHIWE NKWALI

RELATED ARTICLES

• SA could be any of these 5 countries
• Leaders or Gods?
• Find the right cadres
• Mokaba's mom cast into desert
• Public funds books magically balance despite missing booty
• ANC has proved it constantly refreshes, renews, responds
• ANC is old, confused and senile
• Zuma's speech was too vague
• Disturbing moral decay

The rowdy Polokwane delegates were responding to then ANC president Thabo Mbeki, who was reading out his political report, urging them to discuss an important issue: the cause(s) of the divisions in the party.

After he had been humiliated, the conference had ended, his foot soldiers (remember Mluleki George?) politically decapitated, Mbeki called a press conference in Pretoria.

At that conference, on the lawns of the Union Building, this journalist asked Mbeki if he had had a discussion with delegates about the accusation that he had caused divisions.

He said he hadn't had the opportunity to.

So bad was he in the eyes of those who triumphed at Turfloop, he was forced to quit as the country's president.

Now, how possible is it that this divisive figure - at least according to those shouting delegates - has suddenly recovered his mojo within the ruling party. It all looks surreal.

The idea that Mbeki should return to active domestic politics, so far propounded by Malema, is frankly illogical.

He had said before that he would not want to rule from the grave. Why drag him from there?

But we must understand the political factors that have given rise to this.

The ANC has stubbornly stuck to the politics of ancestry. Its leaders cannot see the future through the lens of its present leader without deferring to the dead and or retired. They always want to reach out to the grave for inspiration.

Each time the leaders of the party get stung, usually by self-inflicted dilemmas, their response is to look backward instead of forward. It happened under Mbeki, but intensified as the party reached its apogee of its leadership crisis when Jacob Zuma took over the reins.

When Mbeki axed Zuma as deputy president, effectively launching him as a wounded presidential candidate, the presidential hopeful resorted to invoking the spirits of fallen ANC heroes.

In his protest rhetoric and struggle songs, Zuma kept telling his audience across the country about what Oliver Tambo, known for keeping the party alive while semi-paralysed by apartheid's draconian laws, had stood for.

Not what he himself stood for in terms of South Africa's contemporary challenges.

Zuma was struggling to stand on his own feet. He needed support, the kind that couldn't be bought with a Schabir Shaik "loan", otherwise known as a bribe by some counter-revolutionary judges who need to be transformed.

Zuma then styled himself as the rightful heir to what those late leaders had stood for during their time.

The sub-text was that Mbeki had gone astray, had sacrificed the unity of the ANC. And this is what the delegates shouted at Mbeki about, accusing him of causing divisions. In the true nature of ancestor worship, some of them are now prepared to forget the accusation they had made.

There is also a quiet search for new ideas by certain structures within the party, particularly in Gauteng.

Having given Zuma a chance to govern - and there remains a possibility that he could once again triumph in Mangaung if he stands for re-election - and having witnessed his many blunders, some members are searching for an alternative leader.

In what is currently seen as a leadership lacuna, they seem willing to trade Zuma for anyone who comes across as his antithesis.

Talk about history repeating itself in ironical terms.

Some speak privately about how much they miss Mbeki's writings. The traffic to the ANC website has

since declined. While "some among us" - to borrow from Mbeki's much-abused line - might feel relieved about the disappearance of arguably the most acerbic pen yet from a head of state, many have been left thoroughly bored.

The brain that used to think for them, which they readily mimicked, had disappeared. So big is the void.

Some members speak of how he elevated the party and the country in international affairs, transcending Jan Smuts. They complain about how the "African Agenda" was flushed away by the G8 soon after Mbeki had left the global stage.

And some long for the economic boom over which he presided and which lifted many from poverty, got many rich and extended the social network to the unfortunate millions.

In the process they also forget Mbeki's mistakes - and that like all leaders, he was not infallible. Well, the retort to this is always "he was an enigma when we elected him". The point being that Zuma was taken to the Union Building "with all his known corruption", to paraphrase Malema - and that didn't matter back then.

But the political nostalgia over Mbeki is symptomatic of yearning for something. It's about searching for what could possibly be better in relative terms for now and in the future; the better that is battling to emerge, and might not.

When some ANC members and leaders can't see any good in the present and they know it's unlikely to emerge in the near future, they resort to looking backward. This is hardly the way to move forward.

Praying to the ancestors can't serve as a muti for the sick patient, as David Makhura, the Gauteng provincial secretary, aptly described the party. (He omitted to say whether it was the deadly Ebola or a curable flu virus).

Malema, who feels like a jilted lover as Shaik does, is using Zuma's less than virtuous attributes - a lack of scholarly depth - to opportunistically bring Mbeki back into the fray under the guise that the ANC needs "that intellectual depth".

This begs the questions: why is the ANC lacking and unable to attract intellectual depth? Doesn't it like it that way?

Malema is playing a dangerous game of wanting to sneak back to life a "dead snake" (Zuma's phrase) and "genocidal president" (Buti Manamela's) a "dictator" (Malema's).

Has Mbeki been cleansed of all these dangerous characteristics?

Remembering these utterances, one wonders what would have happened if the ANC's newly found zeal to discipline its noisy elements had applied when these phrases were uttered.

Maybe Mbeki would not have vanished to political banishment from which he is now being surreptitiously recalled. Maybe the unwritten gag on quoting his speeches would not have been imposed.

Maybe.

Comments

• Sign in or sign up to comment

Mon May 20 06:35:31 SAST 2013 ::

Jan 25, 2012

MommaC

A well considered and thought provoking article.

Flip-flopping isn't working so well and neither is electing 'opposites' all the time. The ANC needs someone with vision or it will be in danger of being completely taken over by a bunch of idiots with nothing other than self serving personal agendas
Report Abuse

Jan 25, 2012

Pfanani

The lesser is said about this column the better. Who said that if the yell at you in politics you quit. It will be very childish for anyone to do so. Even Zuma himself there are time when people shout or yell at him but that doesn’t mean that it’s the end of it. There is no special book that defines politics, and there are a number of people. Again I think most of us African brothers and sisters don’t read, including political analysts, so called columnist and also a lot of people who comments. We see headlines and quickly jump into conclusion without understanding world trends and also how best things can be done in political arenas. In politics there are no permanent friends and permanent enemies.
Report Abuse

Jan 25, 2012

Ann

mara Malema o wa lena o kare ke mongolo bona fela jaaka sega jo!
Report Abuse

Jan 25, 2012

Madyeke

Former President Thabo Mbeki is tried and tested cadre, who has seen it all. After the formation of 'COPE' people were asying he intended to join it but to their disappointment he did'nt. You remember the open letter by Fikile Mbalulula after Mbeki has refused to be involved in the ANC 2009 election campaign. Acusing him of the master mind on the formation of COPE. But surpringly the very same people (Mbalula and Malema) who velified Mbeki want him to help them to get rid of Zuma.

Report Abuse

Jan 25, 2012

SeshegoGuY

A well articulated article. Very true indeed. if there is one thing the ANC don't want to admit is that Zuma has failed in all fronts as a leader
Report Abuse

Jan 25, 2012

Wozanami

Eish, that Mbeki must tell some good jokes.
Every picture i see of him and Malema, Juju is laughing his ASSSS off (and maqaqa is hanging around in the background watching Juju's fish mouth to see if he must also laugh or not)

I want to hear some of those jokes.

Report Abuse

Jan 25, 2012

golezwa

can someone summaries this article???? i hate reading long stories
Report Abuse

Jan 25, 2012

LLCool

Magaga/or is it makaka is clearly visible nee, look at the teeth Gap or bridge.
Report Abuse

Jan 25, 2012

Madyeke

Seshego GuY, must be one of the rented thugs who has just been recruited in the ANC and their duties is to undermine the intelligency of the current elected ANC leadership. As a supporter of Malema yourself tell me one country who has succeeded on nationalisation and myself i will tell you more than 20 (twenty).

Report Abuse

Jan 25, 2012

LaVidaLoca

All I can say is "Politics are a very dirty game",
Report Abuse

Read all 58 comments