Mbeki's letters the ravings of a bitter man

When former president Thabo Mbeki announced his intention to publish weekly articles, he declared his chief object as the correction of history.

Thus, his first dispatch was anchored on Winston Churchill, who during his time set out to soften the heart of history by writing it himself.

As Mbeki acknowledges, "Churchill did write the history of WWII, producing a series of six books."

By making reference to Churchill's series of books on as weighty a historical subject as the Second World War, Mbeki aroused our appetite to expect no less from his articles.

It was tempting to expect a serious reflection on the evolution of South Africa, through the lenses of a former president whose intellectual brilliance has dazzled the world.

We were thus lifted by our expectation to the level of historical reflection exuded by such renowned scholars as Francis Fukuyama, who, like Churchill, has written a series of books on history.

We may not agree with Churchill or Fukuyama, but Mbeki gave us the impression that his own correction of history would be at their level.

Disappointingly, Mbeki has tantalised and left us salivating. He has used his series of articles to play in the lower league of the historical nonentities who conspired to topple him back in 2007.

Last Monday's instalment was the lowest point. Mbeki went out of his way to exhume the opinions of obscure individuals and gave them a veneer of historical significance.

Does Mbeki seriously think that, 100 years hence, posterity would like to know what a certain Karima Brown once said?

Surely Mbeki is learned enough to discern that, in the bigger scheme of things, Karima Brown - or Blade Nzimande for that matter - is not a figure of historical significance.

Why, then, is Mbeki wasting his time wrestling with dwarfs, instead of tackling historical giants?

We are left with no conclusion other than the suspicion that here we are observing the ranting of a bitter old man, who can no longer distinguish the trivial from the salient.

Yet we know that Mbeki is capable of handling serious matters of history. Those who doubt it must read his 1978 speech on The Historical Injustice.

There you come face-to-face with Mbeki the thinker, on a level far above Nzimande and Brown. Why Mbeki decided to descend so low can only be the result of boiling anger.

We are not suggesting that Mbeki should write about celestial phenomena, thereby proving his alleged "aloofness".

We are simply urging him not to waste our time by sucking us into the vortex of his anger, under the pretext of correcting history.

Would it not be worthwhile to read a series of books by our former philosopher king, sharing his wisdom as to where he was taking South Africa by acting the way he did when he was president?

If Mbeki is truly interested in history proper, his reflection would touch on the historical position of South Africa in the world, and proceed to illustrate how he worked to influence the domestic front to reposition our country strategically.

Perhaps such an exposition would make us understand his fervent belief in the policies he pursued, and why he thought such policies constituted a road to a strategic goal.

Such kind of reflection would shed light on why he thinks all the factional shenanigans that finally toppled him were a deviation from a historic mission. In other words, we would understand how we ordinary South Africans featured therein. So far, Mbeki's letters sound like petty squabbles by an embittered old man who is fast losing his faculties.

His head seems to be buried too deep in the pedantic details of ANC meetings.

Thus, Mbeki's letters read like dispatches from an exiled factionalist-in-chief who is worried that members of his clique - back home - are beginning to doubt the soundness of the line pursued by their leader.

Someone should advise Mbeki to dig his head out of the ANC grave, and behold what is happening in South Africa.

Were he to wake up, he would rescue his correction-of-history project from the dark bunker of squabbles to the noble surface where the real building project of our country is taking place.

On that surface, Mbeki would notice the poor workmanship of current leaders who, owing to their intellectual deficiencies, don't realise that they are busy dismantling instead of building our country.

Because he is mired in past internal ANC squabbles, Mbeki finds himself playing marbles with Karima Brown, instead of correcting history by assisting us to see the way forward.

What a bane would it be, 100 years hence, for Mbeki to look down on earth from the high heavens, only to realise that the living spare no minute for the squabbles he penned hoping to correct history!

Maybe he should learn from his role model, Winston Churchill, and write his own series of books that deal with something more serious than the little shadows he has hitherto been chasing.