FROM PRETORIA WITH LOVE

They say it’s your birthday

The new South Africa is ten, marking the tenth anniversary of democracy which is often confused with freedom. In world terms, it is an impressive achievement with 73% of registered voters taking part in the third free and fair national vote (with only 45% plus of eligible voters, but whose quibbling? Someone has wrangled me an invite from President Thabo Mbeki’s office to the inauguration, as an “old friend” of South Africa. I am trying not to act my age in the sense that I know that the more you have been around any culture or society the more you hear about its shortcomings. And I have heard a lot.

The positives are obvious and Nelson Mandela, as usual, makes the case for what’s happened as a “human achievement that in its impact and magnitude transcends and belies the brevity of its years?We were expected by the world to self-destruct in the bloodiest civil war along racial lines. Not only did we avert such a racial conflagration, we created among ourselves one of the most exemplary and progressive non racial and non-sexist democratic orders in the contemporary world.”

Hear! Hear! Viva!

“WE COUNT OUR VOTES”

The non-stoppable Desmond Tutu seconds the emotion. “Here we are celebrating our third free and fair election (and we can actually count our votes,)” a clear reference to the debacle in “Fraudia” in 2000.

And then there is Thabo Mbeki, now beginning his third term in the eyes of many South Africans in the sense that while Mandela ruled, in his first and only term, it was Mbeki as deputy president who actually ran the first democratically elected government.

He ran and won in l999, with a healthy margin, and then his country returned him to power with a bigger vote than Mandela received in what was called a “liberation election” in l994. A 70% margin is almost unique in our polarized political climate but bear in mind that in South Africa voters elect parties and party lists, not individual representatives except when it comes to the president. It is the African National Congress (ANC) that triumphed. The ANC has always been a “broad church” movement with backing from labor, churches, community groups and, oddly, communists and capitalists.

To his admirers, Mbeki, son of a legendary ANC stalwart, and political prisoner is a pragmatist and brilliant strategist who is also a theorist, manager and wily politician. He is the ANC man who has fused a moderate social democratic agenda with Africanist identity politics.

To his critics, he “talks left and walks right,” and is characterized as an autocrat who chills dissent in the ranks, holds bizarre theories about AIDS and has betrayed the autonomy and democratic character of the movement which brought him to power. Radical Academician Patrick Bond critiques what he calls his “no-liberal agenda” in a new book that argues that the ANC has sold out to big business. This view has clearly yet to define a mass debate in South Africa although many feel that the next time around, he will be challenged on the left as well as the right.

This year for example, he has championed more women in politics — a clearly progressive stand — but many of the women he has chosen are either unknown or known as compliant and not expected to challenge his priorities. He has just for example dumped the long time speaker of the parliament Frene Ginewala who was not reappointed perhaps because she was too feisty and independent for the ANC top-down poli-crats.

THE ENIGMA

“President Thabo Mbeki remains an enigma to many of his people appearing variously as deal maker, power broker, statesman and social democrat,” opines the Sunday Times in a profile. “Ten years on we are still trying to define the man. Which is a great pity because, as future historians will say, he defined our founding decade.”

“Look at the election results, ” one of his closest Ministers, Essop Pahad told me in front of the stage on the grounds of the Union Building in Pretoria the site of the inauguration and l0th anniversary celebration to be attended by 45,000 people, nine Presidents, mostly from Africa, and one news dissector. He recited a litany of the numbers of houses built and other achievements of Mbeki’s administration.

“We’ve realized our dream. We’ve evolved as leaders.” He was in a celebratory mood looking in on the progress of the concert, shouting instructions to musicians Jonas Gwanga and Mbogeni Ngema, the giants of the South African music who had been rehearsing in the hot sun. They bantered back and forth with him, knowing he was there micromanaging the show on the President’s behalf. Mbeki would later come on stage for a cheering reception.

THE CULTURAL CONNECTION

Mbeki was honoring their contributions and legacy by having them perform along with Hugh Masekela, Letta Mbuli and Caiphus Semenya, Abdullah Ibrahim (Dollar Brand) Actor John Kani and poet Don Mattera. They were all part of what they called “the creative coalition.”

Their show was not just entertainment. They were offering a didactic but inspired program that mixed in theater, poetry, praise singers, story telling and traditional dancing to showcase the history of the South African struggle and the progress of the last ten tears. And yes there were Indian dancers, tribal troupes and white singers to bring out the rainbow of this self-styled “Rainbow Nation.” The show went on for 9 hours as free concert and later as a more sedate but stirring performance at the State Theater. Both shows were televised even as the TV reporting on the inauguration was largely uninformed and wide-eyed, focusing more on the fashion and the ritual which included military flyovers and a parade that one newspaper compared to Moscow in the l950’s. (No it was not that bad!)

MEDIA MEDIOCRITY

Before traveling to Pretoria. I stopped into the offices of a top weekly newspaper in Johannesburg and met with an editor who was expressing remorse about the lack of critical edge in South African journalism. We had begun speaking about his distress with the Bush press conferences that he felt lacked tough questioning. But he quickly segued into expressing disdain with his own country men who also felt were compliant and even servile lacking a critical culture of adversarial reporting and investigative journalism. I was surprised by the degree of his impatience with South African journalism.

Human rights activist Rhoda Kadalie was contemptuous in the pages of Business Day in indicting media collaboration in “electoral cynicism. “Elections expose journalist for what they are — the very scum they write about, “she writes about the lack of depth in the election coverage, Instead of giving elections the seriousness they deserve, little investigative reporting takes place.” She quotes Gandhi who is said to have said: “I believe in equality for everyone, except reporters and photographers.” She point blank says she is “pissed off,” the kind of personal anger in print we need more of.

The essence of her well documented complaint is; “Very few really analyzed what incumbent politicians were promising voters in the light of their poor performances in their provinces.”

The real political issues were not all that was missing in the political coverage, A Media Tenor study found that HIV/AIDS and education were missing on the political media agenda. The lack of ongoing media focus on AIDs perhaps reflects the relatively low priority of the government.

The international Media Tenor company, with a strong media monitoring operation in Pretoria, also analyzes international coverage of South Africa and finds it wanting. “South Africa is barely getting covered overseas, especially in the United States and the UK,” Wadim Schreiner, their local director told me. “Our studies find far more attention paid to sporting events than our realities, especially the progress made over the last ten years.”

Few reporters, he says on the basis of detailed examination of hundreds of articles and TV broadcasts, get out and talk to people who have benefited; most stay in the cities and talk to people like themselves who share their concerns about crime and government incompetence.

I did visit with John Mattisonn, a former NPR correspondent and now Editorial Director of an impressive new Johannesburg Daily called This Day, owned by a bold Nigerian Nduka Obaigbena, which fuses strong reporting and editorial commentary. Its coverage called attention to the “Tattered symbols” of the day and the fact that unemployment is up as is dissatisfaction with the delivery of services. John says his paper is getting a fantastic reception as it seeks to add quality and depth to local journalism.

Not only were some of the symbols tattered. There was certainly plenty of incompetence to knock as anyone who went through the chaotic accreditation process and other cock-ups during inauguration day can attest to. There was almost a disaster when unchecked crews rushed the stage in a melee that resembled an incident that claimed scores of lives a while back at a soccer match. Fortunately, all that was lost was the lunches of TV crews and police units.

ENOUGH BITCHING

But you can’t let small time bitching distort an obvious achievement — that this country has not degenerated into chaos but has a government that looks very good compared to others in Africa, and I dare say, our own in the United States where promises unfulfilled, treasure squandered and war overseas makes South Africa seems positively nirvana-ish.

The inauguration ceremony itself ran like clockwork in the veranda of the regal Union building that housed the overlords of Apartheid for years. (I learned from British director Tom Hoover that it was the Afrikaner Jan Smuts who first proposed to the UN that the word “human rights” be part of its official language.)

Perhaps that’s why Mbeki’s inaugural speech dealt as much with an “ugly past” as it did with the future. (I was told he is saving his plans for next five years for a State of the Nation speech in two weeks time). His speech was flowery and passionate focusing on the need to end poverty which is key to all the progress he hopes to make. “The struggle to eradicate poverty will continue to be a central part of the effort to build the new South Africa,” he said.

He knocked the UN, celebrated the unity of African nations but did not use the word AIDS once, a stung omission in a country that is at the epicenter of the pandemic. (Mbeki sees AIDS as a disease of poverty although he did not repeat his earlier suspicions that the HIV does not cause AIDS. He seems to have dropped that speculation that brought him into so much international derision. His government has announced but not yet implemented an ambitious plan to give ARV anti Aids drugs out widely and for free.)

THE NEW ISOLATION

What was striking about this year’s inauguration from the two earlier ones I covered was the lack of real international attendance, although 25 heads of state and governments showed. Biggies like Cuba’s Castro and Libya’sGhadaffy were absent. Most European countries, except Norway, sent low-level delegations. The United States dispatched an undersecretary I never heard of, a sign of Bush Administration contempt, no doubt connected to its dislike of South African criticism of the Iraq War. Nelson Mandela scolded president Bush to talk his father; Bishop Tutu was prominent at anti-war rallies and South Africa’s UN Ambassador organized countries against the US position. In his one trip to South Africa, President Bush never strayed off of a military base outside of Pretoria. (I flew back with Congresswoman Maxine Waters who told me the White House knocked her off the official delegation. When I sneered, she responded with a what did you expect look.)

You would think that President Bush who brags of his commitment to democracy every chance he gets would support South Africa in its democratic achievement, But no, as usual, his stance is selective, preferring client states to those that show any independence. Speaking of US policy South Africa, I was fascinated to find it mentioned by former anti-terror chief Richard Clarke in his new book “Against All Enemies.”

In it, he discusses how a trip he took to Israel to enforce the Anti-Apartheid Act passed to impose sanctions led to a step up of US military collaboration with Israel. In short a law seeking erosion of apartheid in one country may have contributed to reinforcing it in another. (By reading the book, I got to see what a cold warrior Clarke was, and how reactionary he is. He objects to the Kyoto treaty on climate change and the International Criminal Court in one of his asides.)

For years under apartheid, South Africa was isolated from the world. Then, as the world’s peoples rallied to its fight for democracy, their governments followed. Now, as the country strikes out on its own, and stands on its own feet fighting an economic battle much harder than the fight against apartheid, the world is pulling back. I would have liked to hear more about South Africa’s economic strategy for fight what Mbeki called obliquely the negative side of globalization.

Some inauguration-goers like myself were surprised at the exuberant reception that Robert Mugabe of neighboring Zimbabwe received from the crowd. Many see him here as a symbol of someone who fought for independence and is still battling to give land back to the Africans. They have bought his hype.

The reality of life in Zimbabwe is very different, and going downhill fast, and Mbeki’s so called “quiet diplomacy” to change the political, human rights and economic disaster there is not working. Even Mbeki’s brother Moletsi went on TV the day after the inauguration to call on South Africa to get tougher on Mugabe even as many in the ANC still feel a debt to him for his help during their painful years in exile. I saw Mugabe face to face at the Presidential lunch and he had the steely look of an evil-doer, to borrow a Bushism.

A PART OF A TRIBE

For me, returning to South Africa was old home week, I saw old friends and comrades as they say here. I reconnected with a people, culture and struggle that consumed my own passions for thirty years. I can still feel part of this tribe of ageing warriors (even if I am not). It is a tribe which still can’t believe that they are winners in a world where many who struggle they way they did are still on the outside looking in, or in jail looking out. I was especially pleased when my old friend Pallo Jordan was reappointed to the Cabinet to head up Arts and Culture after many years in the political wilderness of Parliament. That was good sign because he is known for his independent thinking and ethical values. He is also a Mediachannel advisor. He knows that the long walk to freedom is hardly done.

Even as I am disappointed with failures on the ground and the limits of the political vision, I an reminded that politics is the art of the possible and South Africa is coming of age in an era when the deck is stacked by powerful forces against the revolution that many thought they/we were fighting.

It is hard to rationalize many of the shortcomings I see and hear about, including corruptions of the pocket, heart and spirit. The black elite is every bit as bourgeoisified as their white counterparts in a country that sells more Mercedes than Germany. Greed thrives in South Africa like it does all over the world.

I am hardly in a position to lecture even thought I wouldn’t say no to the opportunity. Even though I am by no means in the in-crowd Thabo Mbeki found a second on “his day” to reach out and shake the hand and say hello by name to someone who has known him since the l960s. He may not be a Madiba (Nelson Mandela) but he would be an improvement on the President I have a problem calling my own.

MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE

There are very few places like South Africa with its great diversity, determination and democratic bottom-up energy, A talk with a leader of the union federation COSATU convinced me that there is more happening on the ground, in the factories and civic groups to push for a more progressive agenda than meets the eye.

There is also a fledging left opposition that is certain to emerge by the next election. Amidst all the suits at the ceremony, there were still participants arriving in South African communist party T Shirts. (I saw a brilliant documentary on South African public TV about two members of that party who disappeared into the Soviet Gulag only to be re-embraced years later when Stalin’s crimes were exposed.)

The new South Africa is no longer so new, and “Ten Years of Freedom” sounds here like a brand as TV advertisements sell the slogan like a product. I guess that’s better than most of the crap we are being sold. Another slogan I saw called for “Deepening democracy and the transformation.”

“THEM THAT FEELS IT KINOWS IT.”(Bob Marley)

At least transformation here is on the agenda. At least this government opposes war and speaks of justice in the world. At a depressing moment in world history, that felt good. I only had to travel ten thousand miles, from Spring to Autumn, from North to South, to feel it even. Many South Africans know their battle is not won, and may never be,.”

And yet I interviewed a young Afrikaner performer who nervously entertained the mostly black crowd. They cheered her on in all of her blondeness and folky style. Afterwards she told me, she was surprised to be have been invited and very pleased by the reaction.

“The last government was all white — this time we must not have all black. We are all South Africans,” she said was a smile, clearly thrilled to be welcomed the way she was.

The poet Don Mattera gives voice to the contradictions of South Africa, to the deep pains that persist amidst all the tenth anniversary euphoria. In “Poetic Voices Celebrating a Decade of Freedom,” he writes of:
“This broken land this wounded place”
“bleeding rains of earth”
“crying a justice not done”
“dying a peace not won”
“this nation of pallbearers”
“not always mourners shall be”
“but gather fruit of the free”
“knowing true justice”
“living true peace”
“This land, the whole land”
“will be healed, must be healed.”

One last note. When I went through customs this morning, past lines of Muslim men being held for questioning in our land of the free, I was wearing a freebee “Ten Years of Freedom” T-Shirt. The inspector asked me what it meant. He said he thought it might be referring to my marital status. I laughed and wondered how he knew.

Back tomorrow with a real dissection. Your comments are welcome to: dissector@medichannel.org