It is hard enough to find Mbeki speaking about our country and its problems. About the rest of the world he always has an opinion, how they should conduct their affairs, where they should and shouldn’t get involved. So imagine my surprise when I found him answering hard hitting questions about Xenophobia, Zimbabwe and the townships!
I was not that surprised to discover it was in fact not Thabo but his brother Moeletsi Mbeki, an outspoken critic of the current leadership who was being interviewed. So to the ‘other’ Mr Mbeki I say, step out of the shadow and help heel and guide our troubled nation. We need straight talkers and doers right now, the time for politicising is over.
Read on for more insights into african thought!
The deputy chairman of the South African Institute for International Affairs, Moeletsi Mbeki [the brother of President Thabo Mbeki], told members of the Pietermaritzburg Chamber of Business last week that big business had failed the country.
"When negotiations began in 1990, leaders of the ANC were the single most educated group in one room. The older part of the leadership, such as Nelson Mandela and Oliver Tambo, were Fort Hare graduates - that was one segment.
"The second segment, including my brother, Thabo Mbeki, Pallo Jordan and others, had been sent out of the country to be trained at some of the world's finest universities. The third group were those who had led the struggle inside the country. These people were more than ready to run this country. However, their single biggest problem - they had no business experience. They were suddenly faced with this massive economy without any idea how to run it."
Mbeki said that when the ANC turned to big business for guidance, the pattern for failed economic policy began.
"Big business's main motivation is profit, not social upliftment. Its gift to the South African government was black economic empowerment.
"There is no way that the ANC could have come up with such a racially exclusive policy - it was always an inclusive organisation. Big business gave a racist solution to the ANC to get around the threat of nationalisation.
"The result? An enriched party leadership and a negative policy that has created a class of wealthy, unproductive people. More simply, black people have been integrated into the white elite, rather that making the economy more inclusive."
Quoting the former homelands as an example of the failed policy, he said the Transkei was a case in point.
"This is probably one of the most fertile agricultural lands in the country. What economic programmes are in place to develop the region? There is not a single new hospital or irrigation scheme. There are no existing policies to include these people in the economy. As far as the ANC is concerned, this segment of our population may as well not exist."
Saying Polokwane and the Eskom crisis had become insignificant because South Africans had begun killing each other, Mbeki warned that, like most African countries, the country was vulnerable to instability.
"Policies can drive and accelerate instability. Now we have a new phenomenon in our country. Locals are attacking foreigners. We thought we had seen this - it was behind us. We believed we were free to grapple with reconstructing the country.
"But when this kind of instability comes into the picture, Polokwane and Eskom pale into insignificance. If we are going to be killing each other, these issues are of no consequence.
"This so-called xenophobia is a direct result of the South African government's failed foreign policy, which is now coming into the domestic arena and causing conflict. We now understand why dealing properly with our neighbours is so important in the context of Africa."
Mbeki said the ANC's attitude to the Zimbabwe question had been totally wrong.
"It was wrong from day one. There are still elements in the ruling party who supported Robert Mugabe as long as he claimed to be fighting for a nationalist cause. I know for a fact that evidence of rigging in a previous election in that country was handed to Jacob Zuma, who chose not to reveal it because of his own sympathies.
"Instead of quiet diplomacy, it should have been pointed out that Mugabe was creating a problem for South Africa. The rule of sovereignty also means our neighbours can't let their problems affect our space.
"The consequence of dismantling the Zimbabwean economy and the ANC's condonation of that has resulted in a meltdown. At some time it should have been pointed out the destruction of food security and agriculture in that country would result in a misplaced population ending up in this country, interfering with our sovereignty. The ANC did the exact opposite - it sympathised with Mugabe at the Commonwealth, and comforted him when the matter of land grabs and human rights abuses were raised at the United Nations.
"One quarter of Zimbabwe's population is now in South Africa - it's a massive influx of people - an estimated three million living among and uprooting segments of our own population.
"Last year, half a million people lost their jobs in agriculture in this country because of shortsighted agricultural policies - and that is just one sector where jobs have been lost. Add that to those flowing in from across our borders, and you realise that what has happened over the past two weeks was inevitable."
Labelling the attacks on foreigners in the country as xenophobia was wrong, Mbeki said.
"The notion that we are suddenly xenophobic is not true. This is as a result of a failure of foreign policy that was not borne by the government but by the poor. The best way to look at our problems is not to compare ourselves with foreign countries, but to get in touch with what is happening on the African continent and our own history. Many people forget the Nationalist Party ruled this country for most of the 20th century. It drove two things, the industrial revolution of South Africa, which included the agriculture and mining sectors. To its credit, it was responsible for massive infrastructure and state-owned enterprises such as Iscor, Eskom and Sasol, which were the backbone of the country's industrialisation.
"It built more than 30 000km of rail network, it started the SABC - all for the purpose of promoting its second agenda, which was to solve the poor white problem. Lots of Afrikaans-speaking people lost their land and their jobs during British rule. The Nationalist government's solution was to grow industry and create jobs, which it did relatively successfully."
Mbeki said the ANC had done the exact opposite, resulting in a massive section of the population being marginalised.
"We know the Nationalists marginalised blacks, but the result of their economic growth policies had the unexpected spin-off of creating jobs for those people as well. What the ANC has done is to focus on driving a politically stable democracy, which has worked - until a week ago. When you look at our country from afar it looks very shiny and successful, but when more than half of the population is sitting out of the economy, it's not very shiny.
"The crisis we are facing in this country at present is not about political instability, it is about social instability which is a direct result of pressure from a marginalised population suffering from meltdown in a neighbouring country. The only way the ANC has managed to keep the situation under control is by handing out 13 million social grants, made possible by developing Asian countries hungry for commodities like gold. South Africa may give the impression that it is prosperous, but in reality, more than 50% of our people are unemployed.
"That's where economic instability has created perfect material for an ambitious demagogue who is mobilising this sector for support."
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